Disclaimer: Everything PJO is Rick Riordan's property. The OCs Melissa and Jacob are mine, though if you ask me if you can use them I'll probably be flattered and say yes. Anyways, yeah, another one-shot of mine! Note I will probably not continue this, as it is meant as a one-shot.

The idea first came up during a training session, which she paid absolutely no attention to, while she was sitting on the bleachers with her cabin mates and the swarm of boys who were trying (but not succeeding) to flirt with them.

Melissa didn't deny she was a stereotypical Aphrodite child: stunningly good looks, a special way with clothes and makeup, and more than a tad bit ditzy, though the charmspeak talent that everyone in her cabin craved had sadly passed her by. At the time, she was applying a fresh coat of eyeshadow to highlight her emerald colored eyes and making sure that her purely blonde hair was still shiny and had that special bounce. Suddenly, she had a flash of insight about one of her favorite topics: love.

Love was diverse topic, working differently for everyone. Some people might find their true love with ease, others might bounce from failed relationship to failed relationship. Matchmaking, a fun hobby for Melissa, helped people get their true love sooner and get out of the bad relationship rut. Love was pure and gentle, but could cause fiery emotions inside people. It might cause heartache, but at its core it was one of the best things in the world. So the thought that that emotion might not be real, instead faked by a puppeteer wanting a sour end or a happily ever after, devastated, especially when she realized that her mother Aphrodite was probably the puppeteer. The idea that love might have never existed at all, instead being a figment of her mom's imagination with the side effects thought up, shattered her completely.

As she paced to her cabin, training time over, her reality was destroyed with every thought she had and step she took. As she went in, she immediately plopped down onto her bed and tried to come to terms with the theory she had come up with.

Love is fake, something my mom thought up. My mom is the chess master, and decides if someone gets a happy ending or a tragic fate. Everyone, even my friends, are the pawns. Me, my cabin, are the slightly stronger pieces, helping to speed up the process to the ending or slightly influence it, but in the end we are pawns as well. All for something of the chess master's imagination, Melissa thought hollowly, astonished at how easily she had been able to come up with this even though she hated this theory and hated thinking almost as much. Everything fit, and she couldn't find a hole in the thought as hard as she tried.

Melissa wanted to be in control, strived to be, craved being in control. As a bit ditzy, she couldn't always be in control, but she strived to gain it whenever she could, so in this situation she looked for any possible solution to not be a pawn. Soon she decided there was no other way. I have to swear off love, she thought.

OOOOOOOOOO

It took Melissa a while to accept the plan. As much as she hated the idea of love being fake and not controlling it, she loved love anyways. It took an enormous amount of willpower just to accept the plan, and much more to go ahead with it. She didn't bother telling her cabin. She knew they wouldn't get it, as they weren't built for that kind of philosophical thinking. She was one of the smartest people in her cabin, though she admitted that wasn't saying very much.

For about three months Melissa went on like this, pushing away flirty and shy boys alike, rejecting heartfelt, emotion-laced admissions of love from secret admirers (and there were a lot), and skillfully dodging her siblings' admittedly rather feeble matchmaking attempts. She hardened her heart to the world, and nothing could crack the shell. Nothing, until one night a goddess paid her a visit.

OOOOOOOOOO

In the dead of the night, the moon clear and full and the stars struggling to shine through the polluted New York air, a crisp wind blew through the Aphrodite cabin. Melissa woke up from the disturbance, though no one else did. A shimmering form slowly shaped, turning into a girl the age of twelve but radiated power beyond anything else. She had long, plaited auburn hair and strange eyes the color of the moon. Even though she had never seen her, Melissa had no doubt this was the goddess Artemis.

"Hello, Melissa," Artemis said sternly, though her tone had the smallest hint of airiness. She was smiling softly.

"Lady Artemis," Melissa bowed, entranced by the goddess's presence even though she appeared two years younger and much shorter.

"I hear you have sworn off love, to be free from the tangles of men," Artemis stated, her voice silky. Melissa simply nodded, even though the reasons were much different. She suddenly had an idea about what this visit was about.

"I'd like to invite you to join the Hunt," Artemis told her. "There are many benefits. Immortality, archery skills, and a group of girls who have made the same pledge as you. True, you are older than a normal recruit, and I normally don't recruit Aphrodite's daughter because they are rather prone to breaking the pledge, but I think for you I can make an exception."

Melissa was stunned and flattered at the same time. Her, in the Hunters? It was a one-in-a-mortal-lifetime offer, and she would be inclined to take it. Awesome fighting skills, a group of people who have sworn off boys too, not to mention immortality? Yes please. She was about to say yes, but then a gut feeling told her no. It was the tiniest urge, but soon she gave into it.

"I'm sorry, Lady Artemis," she apologized. "But I do not want to join the hunt." The smile on Artemis's face turned to a frown.

"Well then," Artemis replied in a cold tone, not giving Melissa a chance to reconsider. "I'll be leaving then." And as Melissa averted her eyes to avoid looking at Artemis in her true form, she instantly disappeared. Melissa crawled back into her bed, kicking herself for refusing and wondering why she did. She had a faint idea when the next morning, Jacob came to Camp Half-Blood.

OOOOOOOOOO

Jacob was boyishly handsome, with bronzed hair that was slightly wavy and a bit of a tan. He had eyes the strange color of violet, which seemed to control and twist your mind. A faint mix of grapes and strawberries trailed him. At first sight Melissa blushed at him, which later infuriated her as he had so easily tore a crack in the shell she had encased around her heart with month's of hard work. He was claimed instantly: Jacob, son of Dionysus.

Unbearably slowly but surely Melissa came to "like like" him, as they said in elementary school. The way he had with grape and strawberry plants and the way he could control your state of mind and make you angry one moment and shocked the next was intoxicating for her, and she hated both herself and him for it. She avoided him as much as possible, ignoring her feelings to search him out when she was bored and pretending she didn't know why she felt envious when he started talking a lot to Amy, even though she totally did.

But still, Melissa had a crush on him, and she started to wonder if love, even if it was faked and controlled by her mother Aphrodite the chess master, was so bad after all. Her thoughts furthered when she listened to this sentence in a conversation between an Athena boy and his Apollo girlfriend, whom he was explaining chess to her. The girl appeared clearly bored, but was acting interested for his sake. He picked up a pawn on the chessboard that separated them, and moved it to the clear other end of the board. He then moved to the box of pieces, plucked out a queen, and easily replaced the pawn with it.

"You see," the boy explained to the girl, "when a pawn reaches the end, it becomes a queen." That struck Melissa. When a pawn reaches the end, or the end of its story with a bad ending or happily ever after, as she thought of it, it becomes a queen. It's still only a piece of the game, but it's suddenly more powerful.

Step after step Melissa took, pondering the words, all the while wondering whether she should break the swear and reopen her heart to the world.