WARNING: Spoilers for House of Hades!
If something bad ever happened to her (like, you know, usual) and she wound up dying (considering the circumstances, a serious probability), the word "meddling" wasn't going to be anywhere on her epitaph.
Courageous, fierce, ultra-powerful, most awesome demigod of all time—sure, why not? But if some idiot like Connor or Travis decided it'd be funny to put meddling on the list, Thalia would make a deal with Hades and come back to life just so she could use the little twerp for target practice. Special edition. Complete with electric arrows.
Okay, so maybe she was exaggerating, you know, a little, but you get the picture. Thalia Grace wasn't exactly the kind of girl who lived in a pink, checkered cabin and pranced around a boot camp in high heels and chewed bubble gum obnoxiously loud, gossiping about the latest camp "scandals." Please, if that chick from the Demeter cabin decided to get a rainbow tattoo almost identical to the one on Butch's bicep, then kudos to her. Weirder things had happened.
For example, take Mellie and Gleeson Hedge.
Thalia wrinkled her brow and hesitated, her hands faltering around the arrow a little. Hedge getting a nymph. A nice nymph too, not some bloodthirsty, barbarian monster who'd try to eat him the second he turn around. She smirked to herself. Not that the poor thing would even have much of a chance.
The satyr had to be one of the most violent things Thalia had ever met and if that wasn't saying something about his anger issues, then probably nothing would. Hedge's favorite phrase was: KILL IT! Closely followed by: KILL 'EM ALL!
It was a wonder he and Ares weren't best pals.
Thalia steadied her hands. Mellie and Hedge were kind of a weird couple. Where Mellie was all sweet and bubbly and one of the kindest souls on the planet, Hedge was all about killing monsters and megaphones and baseball bats. Not exactly your typical match up, but hey, whatever works for them.
There were funnier couples. Silena and Beckendorf, Chris and Clarisse, Leo and Calypso…
Percy and Annabeth.
Not the didn't support them or anything. Thalia knew they'd wind up together from the moment she tumbled out of the tree and her head stopped spinning. Granted, it was strange to think about. Percy and Annabeth? You've got to be kidding.
That was like the valedictorian dating the school's troublemaker. Maybe not the best comparison, after all, Percy was nowhere being awesome enough to be a bad boy, even if he was a rebel, but that was the closest as Thalia could describe it.
They grounded each other but at the same time were just so unstable. Put them together and they made the riskiest choices—falling into Tartarus headfirst without even consulting Thalia first would be at the top of the list.
The two were complete polar opposites. Logic and reason versus impulsiveness and sheer stupidity. Knowledge against instinct; control against wildness.
Athena and Poseidon.
…And a lot of other mushy, thoughtful things too, but sap was definitely not going to be on Thalia's epitaph either. To be blunt, Percy and Annabeth, while undeniably perfect for each other (although it kind of made her gag every now and then) were also ridiculous.
A tingle went down Thalia's spine and the tiny, fond grin slid off her face. Although, considering…well, maybe Percy and Annabeth weren't the oddest couple to cross her mind. She pressed her lips together and gazed firmly at her target.
Nico di Angelo.
Thalia had seen the way the son of Hades glanced at Percy. How if Percy grinned at him or clapped him on the back for doing something that didn't completely suck, Nico's face would become sullen and withdrawn like he was trying to keep it all sometimes he'd get this look in his eye when Percy and Annabeth pretty much closed themselves off to the world and focused on just each other.
Everyone else got a look too. Leo's was uncomfortable. Frank and Jason whistled and awkwardly averted their gazes, but you could tell they didn't really care too much. Piper and Hazel traded mirthful looks like they were going to awww any moment. And Thalia, well, she just rolled her eyes and pretended to look annoyed at being left out in the cold, but Nico, Nico wasn't any of that.
Thalia clenched her teeth. Don't get her wrong, she wasn't a homophobe. It was just the way it was, no biggie, but at the same time, it…actually, Thalia didn't know what it did to her. Maybe it just bothered her a little that one of her cousins and a crush on the other, who was in fact dating her best friend, but either way it left Thalia feeling a little confused and unsettled.
She guessed she could see why. According to Rachel, Percy just had this…charm about him that was hard to resist. Personally, she'd never experienced it. This was the guy who lived off of nothing but cheeseburgers and blue diet coke and practically never picked up after himself. To Thalia, Percy was just her clumsy, hard-headed cousin who just so happened have kind-of-maybe-sort-of-cool water powers along with the unofficial title of Camp Leader.
But to Nico…well, Percy was something else.
She'd often been felt torn over whether to go talk to Nico about his feelings—Hades, each time she thought about it she got pretty close to doing it, but at then at the last second…
No.
It was selfish. So, so, so selfish, but Thalia couldn't do that. If she did, she'd either wind up driving Nico even farther away or tipping off Percy to how the son of Hades actually felt about him, and both scenarios ended the same way. Their little—bond? friendship? kinship?—whatever it was, would be ruined.
Thalia knew she should talk to Nico. She should tell him that there was nothing wrong with it. That it was okay. Hey, if you got passed the slightly crooked teeth and infuriating smirk, Percy Jackson was a pretty good-looking guy.
But she was Thalia Grace. Unless you so happened to be a daughter of Aphrodite, meddling never ended well. For anyone. The one thing Thalia would never do—the one thing she swore she'd never do, was meddle, and Hades, getting within a ten-foot radius of the situation was doing just that.
Thalia pulled her string taut. And released, knowing she'd gotten a bulls-eye before her arrow even found its target.
She totally didn't notice the way Nico watched Annabeth rest her head on Percy's shoulder. Nope.
Not at all.
…
Thalia made a mental note to cross "courageous" off her list of virtues.
Just finished read House of Hades, and I'm kind of just...a mess? I feel so bad for Nico, but I just love Percabeth too much so this was my way of dealing.
Tell me what you think.