Title: Broken strings
Characters: Thalia, (mentioned Annabeth, Jason, and Luke)
Summary: No tear has been shed when others are around. But in the darkness of the night, with only Artemis and her violin as her witness, Thalia cries.
Pairings: Slight ThaliaXLuke
Rating: K+
Genres: angst
Warnings/Spoilers: spoilers for Heroes of Olympus.
Timeline: Set between Sea of Monsters and Titans Curse.
Author's Note: for some reason, the idea of Thalia playing violin amuses me…
Disclaimer: I TOTALLY own Percy Jackson! Lol, no, I wish. Instead, I only own this story, which the Muses have so kindly planted in my mind. That, and my copies of the books.
Silence reigned the night over Camp Half-blood, watched on only by the shining silver orb that was Artemis as she made her way across the vast indigo sky. A single, long, shimmering note of music pierced the quiet, followed shortly after by another, lighter chord, sweet as honey. As the notes shifted together in an invisible dance through the air, piecing together into a beautiful melody, a picture was painted in the summer sky.
Though the song was beautiful, it was one of sadness, of heartbreak, loss, and morbid torment. As clear as the Aurora Borealis in the north, all who were awake to witness its majesty could see the story hidden behind the wordless melody.
The song painted the image of a young girl, her heart still heavy with the grief of her brothers death, who ran away from her home when the truth came out; when she realized she wasn't truly who-or what- she thought she was.
As the ballad continued it shifted into a lighter, slightly faster melody as the picture behind the music changed as well.
No longer alone, the girl found a new sister, a family, and a best friend. As the lighthearted melody shifted ever-slowly back to the melancholy chord it had been before, the girl and her new family laughed and smiled, shared good times and bad. But what was coming was all too predictable
All three of them were strange, different, unique. And there were those who wanted them gone. So the girl and her family ran, fought, and survived. They couldn't stop, couldn't rest. Finally their pasts caught up to them, and they reached a crossroad.
They all knew that only two would live to see the end of their journey.
The music slowed further as the final stroke was made. Her family safe, the girl closed her eyes and smile, then fell slowly, a black talon piercing her breast.
In the shuddering, endless silence between notes, you could see painfully clear the dying young girl in the echoes of her last heartbeat, her luminous eyes already dulled by the shades of the Underworld.
An uplifted note now, as the girl was given a final, last minute reprieve. By the power of the blood that flowed through her veins, she was granted an eternity in limbo, conscious but never truly awake, always protecting those she had come to love.
A single note stretched endlessly into the sable darkness, a beautiful ringing chord that lasted longer than any other. In that single, eternal note, one could see the dark emptiness the girl found herself in now. The long six years she spent as the sentient guardian, the silent protector.
Moving faster now, a complex yet simplistic measure cleaved the night, a combination of notes so pure it wrenched the heart in two. In those four simple notes you could feel the pain the girl felt as she awoke to a time that was not her own, in a place unfamiliar to her, and surrounded by people she didn't recognize.
The song was coming to a close now, the music shimmering in the air like steam in the noonday sun, as though you could see the girls pain now. The pure, heart-wrenching chords blended together in the night air, twisting itself into a single silk thread on the Fates tapestry.
The girl was lost in this strange world she found herself in. Her sister had grown, and now was only a few years younger that her. She had learned, and lost, and loved. And her friend, then tan, sandy-haired boy she had fallen in love with…
The tone shuddered, almost like a sob, before continuing, softer than before.
Her brother has lost his way. He had given up trying to be good, and had instead turned his back on everything he used to believe in. Had forsaken his family.
Had abandoned her.
Abruptly the music ended, cut off as though the strings hat had been making it were slashed. Silence returned to the camp, broken only by the sporadic dropping of rain as its rapid decent was ended, for once not stopped by the barriers over the ancient training camp.
And as the darkness of the night pressed down around Thalia's shaking frame, her sobs were lost in the endless pounding of the silver rain on the violin that lay abandoned at her feet.