This is my first PJO fanfic, so yeah. Review. Read it. Try to refrain from laughing at my horrible writing. And above all, enjoy!

REVISED (2016/02/01) : I wrote this story ages ago, when (like I said) my writing was horrible. So now I'm going back and editing some of my work, just because. :D

Thalia's POV

"But, Father, I don't want to go to the dances! I would study Latin before wearing one of those ridiculous contraptions you call dresses!" Thalia Grace was angry but she was a teenage girl: they were allowed irrational emotions- although this time it was anything but unreasonable.

"Nonsense, Thalia! You will go to the dances and that is final. Besides, I've already arranged for the finest dressmaker in town to make you a dress! Twelve dresses,in fact. One for each month." Zeus Grace replied- now he was just irrationally angry all the time. It always amazed his relatives how his blood pressure was still so low. Thalia and Annabeth's favourite theory was that he was a vampire.

"I'm going to all the monthly dances?" She sighed; her father would always get is way so why were they wasting time arguing?

"Yes, Thalia. You're eighteen now. Things are expected of you. Why do you think I had Nico di Angelo make you the dresses?" The aristocratic man asked.

"Nico Di Angelo? As in, the town shut-in?" It doesn't matter what age I am; you're always going to say that things are expected of me, thought Thalia.

" Yes, Thalia. Keep up!" her father Zeus' voice boomed, and for a moment she could see why everyone was afraid of him, the Duke. Except for his brothers, Hades and Poisedon. They just thought he was annoying and conceited, which he was, but no one ever dared to tell him that. If they did... Well, off with their heads, as her father would say.

"Well, if I'm going to those "social gatherings", as you call it, is Jason going too?" Jason was her younger brother, and if he came, then she knew Piper was going too. At least she'd have some one to talk to.

"Yes, he is. And that cousin of yours... Peter?" He knew her cousin's name, he just refused to say it because Percy was his brother's and rival's son.

"It's Percy, Father."

"Yes, yes, whatever. Anyways, all those classmates of yours are going. Athena's daughter, Jack Gardner's daughter, the Stoll twins, that Beauregard girl and whoever she fancies this week, that Indian girl, and the Latino boy who's always in the forge, Frank Zhang, the witch's daughter."

So Silena, Beckendorf -his first name was Charles, but nobody called him that, Annabeth, Katie, Connor and Travis, Piper, who was only half Cherokee but my father didn't care, Frank, Hazel, and Leo.

It didn't really matter, because her friends would be all paired up, and she'd be all alone as usual. The third wheel. Or in this case, the ninth.

Then she met the dressmaker. Nico di Angelo. She didn't know what she should have been expecting. A portly old man with a maniacal laugh? A middle-aged bloke with a gruff expression? Whatever it was, it was not this.. This boy. This lad who was only a year younger than she was.

Thalia stood in front of him, and completely understood why di Angelo was Italian for angel. He had the face of one. Now, most people don't look at a thin, average height, black-haired boy with pale skin and features set into a scowl and think heavenly being, but she did. Oh, boy did she. She could see the hidden beauty in that frowning face, the eyes the color of obsidian that could swallow her whole, the sadness well buried in those jewel-colored orbs. Well-buried, but not so that she couldn't see it.

"Let's get started, shall we?" his voice startled her out of her reverie, and Thalia blinked, surprised.

"You seem awfully young to be a dressmaker." the words fell out of my mouth before she could stop them, but strangely, she didn't regret it.

"If you must know, my mother died when I was young, and my sister passed away as well. My father abandoned me. I had to find some way to survive, didn't I?"his voice wasn't cold, but emotionless, like a table that has been scratched and dented but covered in polish to hide its scars. Flat, smooth, robotic. "But you don't have to know that, so let's carry on and take your measurements."

And so began her first day with the dressmaker.