Piper McLean

Piper McLean's History

Early Life

Piper got her name from her Grandpa Tom, who noted her strong voice and hoped that she would one day learn all of the great Cherokee songs, including the Song of the Snakes. As opposed to many other children of Aphrodite, Piper was never very focused on her natural beauty and has a somewhat tomboyish style. At one point, she helped her actor father research Greek mythology (for a role her father was about to take on in a film) and learned quite a bit of information that she found interesting.

Her father would also tell her old Cherokee stories he heard from Grandpa Tom. From time to time, Piper and her father would play a game called "Any Three Questions," in which Piper would ask her father any three questions of her choice and he had to answer them without lying. Her main intention was to find out more about her mother who apparently left after she was born. However, Piper wasn't able to learn much about her mother. She later recalls how her father had driven Piper past a meat-processing plant in Chino when she was little. The smell had been enough to turn Piper into a vegetarian. Ever since then, just the thought of cows made her ill.

As Asclepius would later reveal, Piper had broken her arm when she was six after falling off a horse.

Going to Boarding School

In addition, Piper has always had the ability to Charmspeak and uses it (unknowingly) to gain her father's attention by "borrowing" things from salesmen, causing her to get into trouble with the law when the people report her for stealing. At one point, she talked a car dealer into giving her a BMW and drove it away from the lot. She only stole items because she wanted to gain attention from her father, whom she believed wasn't spending enough time with her. The dealer pressed charges for theft after Piper took the BMW and realized that he had been tricked. Her father's assistant, Jane, made a deal for her to be sent to Wilderness School, a place for delinquent kids, instead of going to jail. It was there that she met Leo Valdez, and the two formed a friendship, she even trusted him with the truth that her father is the movie star Tristan McLean, something that she keeps a secret to most people.

Piper and Leo's backstory is a rare one since they are the only two known demigods who meet and befriended each other before they even knew they were demigods. And, despite being older than twelve, Piper has somehow managed to avoid detection from monsters.

Mist History

Leo Valdez and Piper were both given false memories of Jason Grace before he arrived at the Wilderness School. In these memories, Jason, Leo, and Piper had been friends for about three months after Jason first arrived. Piper tried to get closer to him and the two eventually watched shooting stars from the school's roof and shared a kiss. They began dating a few weeks before the events of The Lost Hero and Jason was also Leo's best friend. This reality was proved to be fake when Annabeth asked Piper some basic things about Jason she doesn't know, like his last name.