Chapter 1
I sat down on the bench, and allowed the feeling of the sun warmed stone seep into my sore legs. I glanced up and saw the god Apollo in his chariot pushing those poor horses to exhaustion in his haste to get the sun to inch ever further into the sky on this early fall afternoon.
“Gods why must the work day be so long?” A woodland nymph gracefully passed my seated position, her slippered feet barely above the ground as she flew by. Her friend (could’ve been sisters but you really never know with those types) rubbed her back soothingly.
“It could be worse, you could be a human.” She cast a not so subtle glance of disgust over at me before they continued along their way.
“At least I get to wear clothes from this century,” I muttered long after they’d gone to be safe. Though the beauty of their long flowing sage green robes and golden slippers filled me with a sort of envy. But my faded mom jeans and white v neck tee got the job done on even the worst of days and I didn’t know what I would do without stilettos or high top sneakers (depending on the occasion).
But even the richest human was poorer than the poorest Olympian. Some amassed such wealth that they managed to have their daughters marry a lesser god or nymph. But my ultimate goal was to become a veterinarian. For as long as I could remember animals were almost eerily attracted to me.
Case in point a pigeon came and landed right on my harm and started pecking at my hair. I didn't even have any leftovers from my job at the bakery today, but I must have smelled like bread or something because one pigeon became two in short order.
"Hey Alexandria, what's cooking good looking?" One of my best friends and dorm mate Nora glided up to me. She couldn't fly like the nymphs but because her father was a lesser river spirit from the Philippines she had an extraordinary grace to her regular walk.
I stood up and then hastily shook the birds off of my arms when they didn't immediately take to flight. She watched them fly away with pursed lips.
"You're such a freak, Alex." She said, while a long thick piece of seaweed sprouted out of her scalp along with four others that were already there.
"Yeah well I'm not the one growing a whole kelp farm out of my head though am I?" I whipped back, only my close friends and family got to see the mouthier side of me. Usually when I was around new people I clammed right up.
She grabbed the piece of seaweed and stared at it in disgust for a moment before yanking it out.
"Its these midterms, I'm telling you!" She said, her bright brown eyes widening comically. "I'm so stressed out lately it's insane." We started walking together towards the dorms. I grabbed a piece that was slowly beginning to replace the old one and pulled it out neat and fast and tossed it into the garbage bin off to the side of the path. The closer we got to the dorms the more dead and dreary the vegetation was.
"What happened here?" I asked, between my full course load of classes and my full time job I was never caught up on the campus gossip or shenanigans.
She looked away from the piece of seaweed she'd been staring at balefully and glanced at the trees before waving her hand in disgust.
"That girl from 3B broke up with her girlfriend, you know the one who literally had a flower nymph as a girlfriend?" She rolled her eyes. She disapproved of any relationship that had to do with a human and an Olympian. Her mom had had a 3 month long affair with her father and ended up pregnant and alone with a half olympian baby and no one to ask questions or help in raising her. And no human man could ever compare so she spent her days staring over the water with glazed eyes hoping that he would come back to her one day.
"That was a huge mistake that nymph was actually pretty sweet for her kind." I said, holding the door open and starting up the stairs to our dorm. I didn't get a chance to see the piece of paper that was taped to the door before Nora snatched it down and started reading it. Shrugging, I stepped in before her and saw our other two dorm-mates sitting on the couch playing their weird farming game.
"You KNOW that you don't go to the town for flower seeds, you have to go find the vendor in the mountain." Carissa shouted at Antoinette who was furiously clicking buttons on the controller.
"Listen I'm trying my best here but I just don't understand why the flower shop in town wouldn't also sell seeds, it seems like such a waste to even make the shop if the NPC is going to be such a useless piece of garbage." Antoinette threw over her shoulder.
I glanced towards my room nervously, and grabbed some lunch meat out of the refrigerator. I piled some bread high with meat and Carissa leaned around Antoinette to gape at me.
"Girl I have no idea how you're as skinny as you are when you eat like that. Go ahead and pass some of that metabolism over here."
I giggled a little bit and started picking at the bread while I stood there watching them and making the appropriate small talk before I excused myself to my room as I'd been doing for the past few weeks.
But before I could inch away far enough Nora grabbed my arm with inhuman strength and her hair began to lift around her face as if caught up in some unseen current.
"Care to explain why we've been sent a notice saying if we don't get rid of the dog in here that we will be evicted?"
"Exsqueeze me?" Carissa said, her mouth dropping open. Antoinette paid no attention, she just turned the volume up a little higher on the TV and then kept on playing.
"I know it was you. C'mon show me the little guy and we can go take him to campus security."
"Please, I can't send him back to where he came from he was clearly being abused. When I found him he was barely breathing."
"I doubt that they're going to be able to find his original owner anyways, they will probably just send him to a rescue or something."
"I doubt that very much." I snapped back, crossing my arms before leading her back towards my room.
She opened the door and looked around, "So where's this little pup?"
I made kissing noises and patted my legs, my hands slightly clammy. The closet shook and he poked his head out, his tongue lolling while he panted his joy at seeing me.
"Hey buddy," I said, automatically slipping into baby talk.
"Alex...he's huge!" The dog stood almost at shoulder height with his head up, though neither of us were the tallest people in the world. I was an inch taller than her at 5 feet 3 inches.
He tentatively stuck a paw and then another out of the closet and I looked at his enormous paws.
"And only getting bigger," I sighed wistfully.
The other two heads followed the first one as he came fully out of the closet, a spitting image of the drawings I'd seen of his father.
"YOU'VE BEEN KEEPING A DOG FROM THE UNDERWORLD IN OUR DORM?!" Nora screeched like a harpy, and I heard the thud of footsteps as our roomates crowded in the doorway and looked at him.
"Oh shit Alex," said Antoinette almost gleefully.
