I kind of realised that Daedalus never did tell Percy about how and why in the world he has a hellhound as a pet, and in the light of my recent challenge to write a story about each PJO character, this coincided nicely for a oneshot. This story happens about a few years before Daedalus introduced himself to Camp Half-Blood as Quintus.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians including its characters and settings.

The Wax Enigma

Her mother had picked her up by the scruff of her neck, not even being gentle with her teeth, and had tossed her behind a crumbled wall. Mika couldn't stand not knowing what was going on, and so she peaked from underneath a column.

The fight was all teeth and claws- growling, blood oozing from cuts this early on. Paws were flying, claws were out… She'd never been so scared. She'd never seen her mother fight like this before. It looked… desperate. This sphinx was definitely a stronger opponent than the usual hellhounds her mother fought against for food or passage through their territory.

Never had a hellhound been able to beat her mother though. She had always come out successful and had provided Mika with safety and food and shelter and a warm place to cuddle every night. Fighting wasn't new to her. Mika was used to this- her mother hiding her before a fight so that she'd be safe.

What she wasn't used to was her mother falling across the floor, getting bit in the neck, and not getting up.

The sphinx screeched and the very walls shook. Mika trembled and tried her best not to whimper. She was shaking.

Her mother's opponent walked away, proud as a peacock.

Mika bounded out from her hiding place and tried to wake up her mother. She whimpered. She begged. She even barked. She tried pawing her. Her mother didn't wake up.

She snuggled up with her mother until her body was cold.

Then she watched until it turned into gold dust.

Daedalus wasn't a man who did things by half.

It was a quirk of his genetics as a son of Athena of course, but he just couldn't stand not finishing a project or rectifying a faulty invention. It had become his hobby. When inventing new things got old or was slowing down, he'd pick up some old blueprints of his, dust them off, redraw them on paper that wasn't from the antiquity, and perfect them.

This was a blueprint he'd been dreading to tackle since his hobby had taken off sometime during the Renaissance.

The wings.

The bronze feathered-wings.

He looked at the blueprint in question, rolled up and tied with a grey ribbon, standing in an umbrella stand he'd promoted to blueprint holder. It was the only one still there, and his heart tore even before he saw the design. It reminded him of too many sad things.

Oh, Icarus. The one person in the world he'd had to take care of, he'd had to love unconditionally… He hadn't been able to take care of even him. Maybe that said more about his worth as a man than Daedalus liked to admit.

But maybe it was time for change. Maybe it was time to face the ghosts of his past and the depths of his mistakes.

He picked up the blueprints, determined to perfect these damned wings.

Mika was pawed across the head. She went flying through the tunnel, and hit herself on a wall with a mural of mosaics. She whimpered and the bigger hellhound snarled, ready to chase her out of his territory.

She got up, ready to fight again.

Her opponent pounced and bit her on the shoulder this time. She whimpered and barked in pain, and finally backed away.

She'd just find food elsewhere.

Of course there was no elsewhere to find food in this maze. Every single passage had a monster in it, ready to protect its territory. Mika was too small to win fights and go anywhere. She was lucky to still be alive and she knew it.

This was why cubs had mothers.

But Mika didn't, and she could either feel sorry for herself or find some food.

Her stomach growled.

She hadn't eaten in ages.

Food it was.

The prototype was small. The wingspan was only the length of Daedalus' forearm, and it was attached to a small mannequin. The weight was proportioned to be that of an average grown human male for the size of the wings.

He'd made this prototype many times. He'd determined that the big problem with the wings –cruel irony- was the wax seal. Didn't he know it?

Anyways, he was trying to perfect the wax. A series of tests and trials (and errors, lots of those) had led him to acknowledge that wax was the only possible solution for his wings- for a series of reasons too complex to elaborate outside a scientific paper that he may or may not write at a further date.

Anyways, this prototype had a new formula of enhanced wax keeping it together.

He brought the tape recorder to his mouth.

"January 5th 1995, trying prototype 22 with the new wax formula which is documented on page 67 of the blue Hilroy notebook marked for the month. As previously explored, the wax formula can withstand incredible heat and cold and I am therefore hopeful that it is the right formula. Trial in 3… 2… 1…"

He flicked his wrist and released the prototype, as if he was tossing a simple paper airplane.

It flew for a few seconds, but ultimately it was too heavy. It plummeted.

He sighed and brought the tape recorder back to his mouth.

"The wax appears to be too heavy a weight for the wings to hold. Back to the drawing board."

Mika was running after termites –termites! Her mother would cry to see her go after bugs like that to keep herself alive.

The idea of possible food had gotten her so ecstatic that she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings.

She plummeted into a hole in the labyrinth's floor, deeper than any she'd seen before, and splashed into water. She frantically waved her paws around until she was at the surface. One of her front paws refused to move and it hurt even more than her shoulder had when it'd gotten bit last week.

She barked and barked, more panicked than Mika had ever been.

Then she remembered that she was alone, and that nobody would come help her if she barked. Worst, if someone heard her bark they might come for completely different reasons. Like eating her.

She managed to get herself to shore -with three paws, an injured shoulder and no previous experience in swimming- on her own. She managed a lot of things on her own now.

Her stomach growled.

But not enough.

Daedalus watched several more prototypes crash and fail miserably before he decided to give himself a break. He needed food, sometimes he went for hours and hours of work before remembering about such things, and maybe some fresh air.

He armed himself heavily –try telling a dracanae that you were the master of the labyrinth and see if she'd leave you alone even then!- and went out.

He wandered around the labyrinth before finding a door and ending up in a Parisian coffee shop that he was quite found of.

"Bonjour," he greeted the bulky and cheerful man that manned the counter.

"Hé, Dédale!" The man, Louis-Paul, said greeting him by his French name. "L'habituel?"

"Que tu me connais bien Michel," Daedalus smiled. The man handed him his usual order- a blueberry muffin and a small café au lait.

"C'est pour ici?" He asked.

Daedalus told him that no, it was to go this time. Louis kept him chatting for a while about this and that, and Daedalus learned that his wife was doing fine and his daughter had gotten herself a scholarship for a degree in anthropology (this Louis said with a beaming smile) and that his son had scored his first soccer (football) goal earlier in the week.

Once he was back in the labyrinth Daedalus walked some more before caving in to his hunger. He took his muffin out of its waxy paper bag and ate as he walked back to his workshop.

Mika was soaked, freezing, bloody and hurt.

And still hungry. So, so hungry… The hunger was ripping her apart, like a set of enemy teeth having a go at her stomach. It made her so weak. Walking was hard- as if her injuries weren't already taking care of that.

That was when her nose picked up on something. She put it to the ground and followed the scent, like her mother had taught her. Like her mother always found her food.

The pain of the memory nearly made Mika stop.

Hunger ended up being a strong motivator.

She found a trail of tiny little things, bigger than dust, that smelled good. She lapped one up with her tongue.

Crumbs!

Crumbs meant food.

Food meant that maybe Mika was saved.

She followed the train and gobbled them up as she went.

Daedalus looked at all his plans. His café au lait was half drank and abandoned on the table, right next to the equally abandoned and even less consumed muffin. He'd had the most magnificent revelation as he walked back to the workshop and hadn't had time to eat. His hands and brain were working too fast for that small matter to be tended to!

He'd found a solution! He'd found one! He could make this work! He could make sure that the faulty wings that had killed Icarus were a thing of the past!

He quickly brewed a new batch of wax. According to his mathematical equations and an extremely well educated guess –if he did say so himself- the wax should have a golden colouration to it if it was going to be successful. That was exactly the colour of the wax in the Erlenmeyer he was working with. He had it!

(Oh, if only he'd had the modern world's scientific knowledge! His son would still be alive…)

He used the golden wax to connect all the bronze feathers together to create a set of wings.

He ran upstairs to the testing room where the small doll waited. He had it!

Mika pushed through a door to get to her crumbs. She'd found that trail all by herself. She deserved it all for herself.

The room wasn't like the rest of the labyrinth –filled with monsters and booby traps. It was full of shining things. Full of pictures with symbols that she didn't recognised. Lots of weird objects she didn't know.

But her crumbs were there, and so she kept going.

Then she found where they came from- lying on a big block that wasn't a rock, strangely. It was there -whatever the strange item of food was- and it smelled good. Like berries.

She tried to get it. She couldn't, she was too small to reach. And so she ran into the weird block, made it tip over, and got her just reward.

He heard a crash just as his prototype failed.

Daedalus froze.

Had he, in his excitement, forgotten to close the door properly? Had a monster sneaked in?

No- he had protection here. He had ways to make sure that no unwanted, foul, ill-meaning visitors could enter. Of course gods could still barge in, but this… this was ridiculous. He panicked. Some of his most valuable work was down there. He couldn't have some… some beast thrash it!

He put his hand on the hilt of his sword –he hadn't taken it off since Paris either, too much excitement- and went downstairs.

He walked downstairs cautiously, not letting his steps make any noise. He stopped when he was high enough to have a full view of the lower level of his workshop, and looked around.

He spotted it. Near his desk- the monster had flipped it over. A hellhound pup. Granted, it was still the size of a St-Bernard, but it was definitely a pup.

"Hey! You there!" Daedalus said. The pup bounced up from behind the desk, paws on the top. He expected it to growl, pounce further. But no, it was younger than he had estimated- barely more than a month old, he guessed. The mother couldn't be far. The thought was dreadful. He couldn't have two hellhounds in his workshop. He had to get rid of it!

He ran down the stairs, sword drawn.

The pup jumped over the desk, whimpering, and ran away from him. It was a quick one, that pup. Must be used to running. Well, he never had been able to imagine life in the labyrinth being easy even for a monster…

It ducked in between two library staircases and Daedalus followed.

He nearly cornered it when it had its back to a whiteboard filled with a fun mathematical joke, but it jumped over him and he had to hit the deck to avoid being hit by this black, fuzzy projectile.

She ran down the chemistry station's counter. Her flying tail knocked a few beakers into a sink. He dared not even think about what chemical reaction that might provoke!

He chased her around his giant globe- one who had dots to indicate major battle sites, world heritage sights, and ex-homes of the gods.

They were lounging the chemistry counter again when something in the sink caught his eye. A golden colour...

He stopped running and looked in it. A wax formula… Golden…

He dropped his sword and grabbed the closest piece of paper he could find and quickly scrawled down the list of all the contents of all the beakers that the pup had spilled into the sink.

He studied it. He never would have come up with all those ingredients missing… He forgot about the puppy's presence as he scrawled down calculations and periodic numbers and algorithms… For the sake of the gods… That pup had solved his enigma! This was the correct formula for the perfect wax!

The pup, he suddenly remembered. He spun around. He heard whimpering from a corner- she'd hidden behind a kind of tipi made by a bookshelf she'd tipped and the wall.

Daedalus sheathed his sword. His heart grew weary and heavy.

That pup was so good at running fast, dodging obstacles, losing her pursuer in his home territory… She was soaking and injured. He remembered the muffin and café au lait he'd left on his desk. She must've been trying to get to it. A hellhound eating a muffin- that was a far cry from the species' usual dietary habits, and even more so from their nutritional needs. She must've been starving.

Daedalus realised that maybe she didn't have a mother who'd come. A pup that badly off had to be orphaned.

He opened a drawer -he had food hidden in the four corners of his workshop- and reached in for something other than a muffin. Beef jerky- that was the closest thing he had to fresh meat. At least for now. He'd have to get her some later.

He took a strip from the bag, stuffed the rest into his pocket and slowly approached her hiding spot. He crouched.

"Hi there…" Daedalus said. She whimpered and backed up against the wall.

"I won't hurt you," Daedalus said. He knelt, and tried to sound comforting. What voice had he used to comfort Icarus after he'd had a nightmare? It was so distant, he thought with a pang to his heart.

"I have something for you, my friend," he said. "You've done me a great favour. You've helped me on the path of putting some pretty big ghosts to rest. I can help you too, it's the least I can do. That cut… you must be freezing. Possibly dehydrated, but definitely hungry…"

He froze and contemplated the situation. Just as he was fixing the mistake that had cost him the first living being put in his care -Icarus- another needy, cold, lonely creature had come to him. This pup. Redemption, fate- call it what you would. Daedalus was a man of science, but even he could not ignore this.

"Here," he said holding out the jerky.

The pup poked her nose out of the hiding place. She was sniffing loudly. She may not have smelled meat in a long time.

He extended his arm further. She retreated a bit, afraid.

"It's alright," Daedalus promised. There was that voice! "It's alright, it's for you. Much better than that muffin I promise you, little one."

She nibbled on the edge of the jerky. He held it and she came further. Daedalus noticed her limp. When he let go she looked at him with her head cocked to the side. He found her more jerky, and she ate and ate and ate.

"You're going to need someone to take care of you," Daedalus said. "Seems only right it be me, don't you think? It's like you picked me, coming into my workshop and making a big mess like you did."

Her teeth got close to his fingers and he let go of the jerky. She kept munching.

"I know that you probably have a name already," Daedalus said observing her. "But I don't know it, and I have no way to communicate with you. I'll have to give you a new one."

He was horrible with names. The only thing he could think of at the moment was of a colleague at The University of London he'd had a century or so ago. He'd been a brilliant man, Thomas O'Leary. He would've been a remarkable chemist if he hadn't died before his work was acknowledged or fully fleshed out –the curse many children of Athena saw themselves stuck with.

Of course, that wasn't Daedalus' first impression of him since he'd come into his lab, raised his hand to offer a handshake and had therefore accidentally spilled a glass recipient full of corrosive acid. It seemed right for a pup who'd come and made a mess of his workshop.

"Mrs. O'Leary," he said. "There."

She cocked her head the other side.

"I know it's not very nice, but it's the best I can do. If you don't like it, then don't consider it your name. Think of it as a nickname. Like a friend gives."

The dog barked and jumped at him, licking his cheek. Of course she was still the size of a fully grown St-Bernard, and so Mrs. O'Leary knocked him backwards. He fell right on his behind, catching himself with his hands as she licked her face. He laughed, both in surprise and because it tickled.

It had been a long time since Daedalus had had someone to make him laugh, and it seemed to be have been a long time since Mrs. O'Leary had had someone to take care of her.