There's barely a second where Luke knows that something's out of place when a girl jumps down from the tall oak tree above him with a great yell.
Luke reacts immediately, pulling out a sword, but his hand lowers when he sees the girl's shield - the head of Medusa molded onto it, blank eyes that could petrify you, staring straight at him. And it shouldn't scare him, it really shouldn't, but it does and Luke feels pretty stupid for being scared of a head, but he looks up at the girl's face anyways. It's almost as fierce as Medusa's head.
The girl narrows her eyes. They're blue - electric blue, highlighted with eyeliner and mascara. She has spiky black hair and a splash of freckles spanning her nose like a bridge from both cheeks. She's wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans, and black Converse sneakers, and in the arm that's not holding that horrible shield, she's holding a spear. She's about ten, though she looks Luke's age - twelve.
"Who are you?" she asks.
And Luke very nearly forgets to answer her, because he's so captivated by her fierce appearance. "Uh, Luke," he stutters.
The girl rolls her eyes. "No, who are you?"
He weighs his words carefully, knowing that that spear could go right through him if he makes one move. "I'm not a monster," he says.
"Yeah, I guess." With a sigh, the girl lowers her shield, and fiddles with something on her spear and her shield, and suddenly they're gone.
"Thalia," the girl introduces herself shortly. "Do you know where we are?" she asks, gesturing around to the forest.
Luke shakes his head. "No idea," he says, looking around and taking in the watery light filtering through the trees, the light and dark mixing together on the ground. "I just came in here to lose the monster that was tailing me."
"Really?" Thalia says, her eyebrow raising. "I came in here because you were coming in, and I didn't see any monster."
Luke shrugs. "I vaporized it about half an hour ago."
Thalia seems to relax a bit. "Okay, that's good. Where do we go now?"
"Well, once we get back to civilization, I can steal a map," suggests Luke, waiting for the usual outburst of "stealing is bad!" from every other person he's met on the road. It's not that he's stealing to do anything bad, he's stealing things to keep himself alive. And it's not like he ever gets caught, and if he has money sometimes he leaves a few cents. Luke left with a hundred dollars in his pocket and the only way he's been able to get more money is stealing.
But they wouldn't get a kid in trouble, would they?
She shrugs. "Sure. There's a town, about, oh, fifteen miles away? If we're fast, we can get there by nighttime."
Luke really doesn't want to walk much because he's got a bad cut on his leg and his jeans are really growing small since he's had them since he was ten and they're not really helping, but he agrees. "Sure."
Thalia takes off running, and Luke follows.
Wherever they're going, they'll make it.
A/N: Just a short little Thalia & Luke oneshot, of when they first meet each other.