Hi, so I should definitely be working on my multi-chapter stories. But I felt like writing this because the idea was stuck in my head. And it seemed a bit cute. No murders, no suicides. It's an average fluffy oneshot.

I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

"Lady Artemis." Artemis looked over at her lieutenant, who was standing by a terribly carved deer from a chunk of a tree that had been cut down a while ago but left to rot. "How's this look?"

The thing was that Thalia seemed dead serious as she asked Artemis about the carving. She had a very stern look on her face. And she seemed kind of proud at the same time. If it had been her first time she had carved a deer from wood, Artemis would have told her that it looked good. But this was the seventeenth this week. And yet, Artemis couldn't bring herself to tell Thalia that it was awful.

"Its appearance has improved Thalia." The small, proud smirk that made its way onto Thalia's face was Artemis's reward for lying. Knowing that Thalia was proud, she saved the girl's self-esteem. By saving Thalia's self-esteem, Artemis was promising herself through an indirect method that Thalia would keep that little smirk of hers.

"Lady Artemis, if that is better, then I believe you must be aging without knowing, for your eyesight is getting worse." Artemis held back the shout that wanted to escape from her mouth. The shout that wanted to reprimand whichever of the various girls in the camp that had just ruined everything. However, Thalia's smirk didn't falter. In fact, the smirk grew into a grin that stretched across her face.

"Right. Thanks Phoebe." It was comedic to her. It was a sort of joke to her. "Guess I'm not cut out for wood carving, huh?"

Thalia was a bit of a comedian when she wanted to be. And she bowed at the laughs that she received for her "joke". True, it wasn't the best carving, but it wasn't that bad. Artemis knew that. Of course, it wasn't really good at all. But at least Thalia was being a good sport about it.

"Yes, well, we must continue our journey," Artemis blurted out, not thinking. She just didn't want to have to watch this display of…whatever it was. A performance? No. It wasn't a performance. That was obvious.

Murmurs of agreement were muttered throughout the girls. They all began to go and prepare for departure immediately. All except Thalia, who looked at the carving wistfully. This look absolutely destroyed Artemis, stabbing her in the heart a bit. Watching Thalia throw the carving that she had tried rather hard to create into the fire. Artemis figured that the other sixteen would be following it soon.

It was sad, very sad. Sad for Artemis just because she hated it when her Hunters were upset. It definitely wasn't because Thalia had grown very close to her heart in the past year that she had been there. Definitely not because of that.

This wasn't a game. She couldn't win. This wasn't love either. She refused to believe that she was falling in love. It was impossible. Artemis didn't love Thalia. And Thalia didn't love Artemis. Love was folly. Rather pointless. And it didn't make the dice fall any differently than they did without love. In fact, it seemed to make the dice move slower, more painfully. Love was a disadvantage in the game of life.

Especially when the player was guaranteed to live forever and the person that caught the player's eye wasn't entirely ensured immortality by the rules of the game.

Love wasn't a game either though, not like how Aphrodite treated it sometimes. And granted, Artemis knew Aphrodite wasn't a complete bimbo. In fact, she was one of the few that knew that Aphrodite had a secret intelligence. It wasn't a secret. People just never paid any attention, even though it had been so many long and tiring years. One would think that they had something better to do, that they would learn something from what they had done in the past.

"Lady Artemis, are you okay?" Artemis focused realizing that she wasn't paying attention to anything that was happening.

"Yes." Then an object struck her hard on the head, and it took a moment for her to realize that the object was an arm, resting casually on her head. Only one person would be stupid enough to do such a foolish thing. "Apollo. Get. Off of me!"

"Calm down Arty. I'm only here to say hi. And maybe pick up a date." She could just imagine the look on his face, the pathetic look he wore when he tried to seduce one of her Hunters, which just wasn't permitted. "So…Thalia, ya wanna go for a ride? In my flaming hot sun Convertible?"

Artemis felt her eyes widen. How dare he not only attempt to seduce one of her Hunters, but he tried to seduce her lieutenant. That was even more of an offence than the usual flirting. It was unforgivable. But she managed to control herself, keeping her voice in check. She wondered if Thalia saw the look on her face, if that was why the daughter of Zeus laughed and turned down Apollo's offer of a ride in his "flaming hot sun Convertible".

He really made her sick sometimes. If gods could get sick, she was sure that she would have puked. As a matter of fact, she never remembered getting sick. Apollo never got sick either. Was it possible? She never thought about it before.

But that wasn't important. She had to stay on task. She had to stay focused. That was the number one problem with appearing the age that she looked like. It often got to her head, making her think and like a mortal of the age that she looked like. Whether her thoughts became scattered and confusing or long and ranting, that just depended.

"Hey, I know!" Apollo snapped his fingers. "You go clear your mind or something like that because you're really obviously out of it right now!"

"Out of what exactly?"

"It! You know?! Like, you're not focused at all on anything! Just go take Thalia with you and go shoot up some monsters and stuff. I'll hang around here and make sure none of these fantastic girls get harmed." She felt a smile on her face. Not because Apollo was offering to be nice, because he was really just trying to get a chance to sleep with one of her Hunters. Going hunting though and "shooting up some monsters" did sound like it would be entertaining. "I swear on the River Styx that I won't flirt, seduce, or even attempt to do anything sexual with any of them while you two are gone."

He willingly swore of the River Styx. Well, that's binding, so he must be real serious. And hunting monster was entertaining, amusing really.

"A-Alright." She cursed herself for stuttering. She wasn't nervous. It was just hunting… with Thalia, who she had no romantic feelings for at all. "Let us be off Thalia."

So the two of them went trekking through the mountains, not finding any monsters, and Artemis honestly found herself getting more and more confused about everything. And she didn't even know why.

Taking a glimpse at Thalia, she soon learned that the demigod was watching her intently, almost like she was a sort of experiment that would explode any minute and utterly destroy the mountainside. That wasn't going to happen though. Artemis wasn't an adolescent mortal. She was a goddess. She wasn't going to break down at the slightest question.

"Lady Artemis, are you okay?" To this, Artemis nodded. "No, seriously, are you okay? You haven't talked or gone after any of the monsters that have past us by."

"Monsters have past us?!" It came out as a sort of squeak. "Why didn't you point them out?"

"I figured you had your reasons, but it's been about an hour now. So I was just gonna ask." Thalia smiled. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to walk off a cliff or something like that. Even though you're immortal, I'm pretty sure that would hurt."

The smile was what caught Artemis's eye. It wasn't forcibly stretched across Thalia's face like the one she had given earlier when Phoebe informed her that her wood carving was terrible. It was completely genuine, resembling her smirk that often inhabited her face. The difference between this natural smile and the one she had forced earlier was what made Artemis uneasy.

"Thalia."

"Yes?"

"How much did it really bother you?"
"How much did what really bother me?"

"The carving." Thalia shrugged, her smile slightly gone. "More than you let on?"

"The carving didn't bother me because it was bad. It bothered me because you lead me to believe that it was good." Artemis stopped in her tracks. Did that mean she lost? Though it wasn't a game, so of course she didn't lose.

"I'm sorry."

"S'fine."

"I-I…love you," Artemis murmured, without thinking, without warning. She didn't even know that she was going to say it herself, and she was the one saying it. The words felt foreign on her tongue, perhaps because she had never said them before to anyone.

"What?"

"I love you," she said a bit louder, sort of embarrassed. Well, extremely embarrassed. And if the statement shocked Thalia, she didn't show it. How the Hades Aphrodite thought so highly of such confessions, she couldn't understand. They were humbling, ridiculing. But then again, Thalia wasn't laughing.

"Really? Well, that could be an issue, huh? At least I'm not a guy, which means it's totally okay." Artemis felt her eyes widen again. What was going on? This was so confusing. If she wasn't immune to love magic, she would have been sure that Aphrodite and Eros were playing a joke on her.

"Wha-?"

She was cut off by a gentle kiss. And she also realized that Thalia had to bend down a bit to kiss her, since she was the height of an average twelve year old.

"Love you too."

Love wasn't a game, but somehow no one loses. And even if it's for a short amount of time, everyone wins. What a strange lesson to learn on a mountainside with Thalia Grace, the girl Artemis had fallen in love with.