Plot bunnies are appearing everywhere. I cannot escape them. I've had this on my computer for a while now, wasn't sure what to do with it, and I decided, what the heck? So I posted it. And nobody can't honestly tell me they weren't the slightest bit curious about what Thalia said about Hyperboreans in The Last Olympian.
And I discovered that my favorite PJ character may just be Thalia, an for some reason I like the Hunters of Artemis, but haven't found many stories about them. This isn't my best work, but I like the way it turned out.
On with the story!
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
The Hunters of Artemis had gone to Alberta, at the request of Artemis. They were supposed to investigate the rumors that the colony of Hyperborean giants was siding with Kronos. There was no need for that, Thalia reflected, as the Hyperborean giants ambushed the Hunters camp.
That made it pretty clear to her whose side they were on. Apparently, the giants had frozen the hunters she put on watch. The giants were around thirty feet tall, with bright blue skin and icy grey hair. They wore white cloth things that resembled diapers for clothes.
To Thalia, it looked like they had the mentality of a toddler. They were taking delight in destroying their camp. The Hunters had camped near a lake. They were in a clearing of tall, snow covered pine trees. The ground itself had snow about three feet deep in it, which caused the hunters to dig a spot for their tents.
Around ten hunters came with Thalia (No wolves or hunting falcons came) for this mission, even though they had around thirty-two now. Thalia discovered that she was pretty good at discovering and recruiting girls who want to be hunters. There were two hunters to each tent, which meant there were five tents. Thalia shared with Phoebe.
Celyn shared with Naomi. Kat shared with Maggie. Cass shared with Demi. And Nixie shared with Lucy. Those were the people the other got along best with. Thalia did not want to be woken up by angry screaming again.
Cass had dyed straight black hair, pale skin, red lips, and grey eyes. Cass was thin, yet strong, built like a dancer. She looked thirteen, and was actually around ninety years old. Nixie had dark red hair and green eyes that held a gleam of mischief.
She had a habit of playing pranks and stealing things from other hunters. She was built like bird almost, fragile and small looking with elfish features, and could pass for a twelve year old, but became a hunter at fourteen. In reality, she was a few years over six hundred years old.
Maggie was pale, with light brown freckles across her nose and light brownish-greyish hair. Her hair was cut short and swept out to the side. She had an average build, and looked like a thirteen year old. She was two hundred, give or take a few decades.
Lucy had brown hair and light brown, amber-ish eyes. She looked like an ten year old, and had only been a hunter for a year. Celyn had dark black hair in a ponytail and hazel eyes. Celyn looked eleven. Naomi was darker skinned, being half Native American. Her hair was coal black and her eyes were such a dark brown they looked black. She looked around ten. Thalia didn't know either of their actual ages.
Diane had dirty blonde hair and light green eyes. She looked twelve and was actually about fifty years old. Kat had light brown hair and light blue-grey eyes. She looked like a nine year old and was about three hundred and seventy.
Phoebe was one of the oldest members of the hunt. She had red hair that was shaved on the sides and long on the top. Phoebe looked to be fourteen. She was built like a wrestler and was there when the myths were created.
She was old enough to remember what happened with Artemis and Orion. Thalia and Phoebe had a love-hate sisterly relationship. She was, out of all the hunters, the one Thalia was the closest to. That didn't mean Phoebe couldn't be irritating.
Celyn and Naomi had been on guard, but when Lucy went to check on them she found them frozen.
Lucy came back to discover the rest of the hunters scrambling to put their gear on, get their bows, and attack. Mostly, they were dodging as the giants chased them around their circle of five tents. The fire they had in the middle was put out by Frosty's breath, as the daughter of Zeus had mentally dubbed one.
They were not outnumbered, but they were overpowered. There were eight giants. One of the giants was attacking her. Thalia wore silver camouflage cargo pants, black combat boots, a silver jacket, and a Green Day t-shirt. Her shield was on her arm, and sparks of electricity flew off her.
Her circlet wasn't on her head, and her hair stuck up all over the place. Hey, she had been sleeping. No time to look 'nice' while under attack. The circlet, her hair, and her outfit can wait. Thalia really doesn't care about battling in her PJ's.
She ducked and rolled as one of the giants took a log they used as their camp fire bench and swiped at her head. Aegis was out and so was her spear, though she had lost it.
"Dammit." Thalia cursed. She had no weapon, her bow had been tossed away into the woods. She was pretty sure her quiver was tossed into the lake.
"RAWRG!" Frosty said. He blew frost breath at her.
Thalia had to jump out of the way, abandoning her shield. It was frozen in a layer of ice. The giant threw snow onto it, covering up the image of Medusa. Snow . . . that gave Thalia an idea. It was a desperate one. She had no idea what was happening to the others right now as she was too busy with Frosty. As she struggled to put together her plan, Lucy came to the rescue.
Lucy shot an arrow Frosty's head, which gave Thalia some time as Frosty roared and looked at Lucy. Thalia scooped up some snow, made a snow ball, and threw it, not giving herself time to doubt her plan. Desperate times call for desperate measures, Thalia thought, recalling Grover starting the food fight.
"SNOWBALL FIGHT!" Thalia declared in the loudest voice she could.
Frosty looked at her in confusion when the snowball hit the side of his head. She threw another. Frosty was so surprised, he stumbled back into Prancer (Thalia decided to name the giants). Prancer fell forwards onto Jack Frost. Boom, three giants down.
The others, giants included, stared at her in shock. The fight had stopped as everyone stared at her in shock.
"Well?" She demanded. "Are you going to stand there gaping like lunatics, or are you gonna help me? It's a snowball fight, c'mon people!"
The hunters grinned. The giants grinned as well with a childlike joy. And so, the world's first snowball fight between the Hunter's and Hyperborean giants took place. The giants completely forgot the reason they attacked the hunters as they played. They made a deal: if the hunters win, the giants go away and leave them alone.
They didn't say anything about what would happen if the hunters lost. The eight remaining hunters did not want to remind the Hyperboreans of what they were supposed to be doing for Kronos. Turns out, all of the Hyperboreans acted like little children. Now she could see what Artemis meant about the giants normally being peaceful.
The snowball fight got a little vicious, but it was better than actually fighting the giants, Thalia supposed. In the end, the hunters won. Still, she had learned a valuable lesson. Never get into a snowball fight with Hyperborean giants. They take snowball fights way too seriously.
Afterwards, it was a pain to clean everything up. Thalia managed to get her bow back from the woods and her quiver (which was stuck in a tree, not the lake; that was fun to get down). She also retrieved Aegis and her spear, which she put away.
The tents took forever to fix. They had to dig the snow off them, as well as all the broken branches from the smashed trees.
At one point, they had to lift the camp fire log (Frosty had dropped it) off of a tent. They built a fire and got Naomi and Celyn. The fire started to melt Celyn and Naomi, who were immediately given fresh clothes, hot cocoa, and a blanket. Thalia and the rest filled them in on what they had missed.
They couldn't believe the other's claim of a snowball fight between the eight giants and eight hunters. The others just laughed and grinned, nibbling on ambrosia and drinking hot cocoa. Thalia was forced to recount it, since she was the one who started it.
Celyn and Naomi laughed, thinking about the looks on the giants faces. Lucy, Cass, Phoebe, Kat, Maggie, Nixie, and Diane were laughing at the memory of it.
"I can't wait to tell the others. No way are they going to believe this." Celyn grinned.
"Yeah," Phoebe chimed in. "Good luck telling Lady Artemis, Thalia."
Thalia groaned. The others laughed harder.
They left the next morning, having set up their sleeping bags around the fire and slept outside. Thalia and the others saw no point in staying since they completed their mission. One explanation of what a snowball fight was, a deadly marshmallow fight (Don't ask), and a screaming Walmart manager later (Definitely don't ask) later, they were at the main camp of the Hunters of Artemis.
It was at the base of the Sierra Nevada's. The camp looked a bit like a city of tents. Of course, normally all the hunters wouldn't be in one place, but Artemis wanted them together in case Kronos attacked them. They were less likely to get attacked together, and they needed the older girls to train the newer recruits.
In the center of camp, there was a big fire. It had a few log benches around it, made from fallen trees. Enough to hold all the hunters. The tents surrounded the fire in a circle. Artemis had a tent that was always north to the fire. That was how a lot of hunters found their way around at first.
Every hunter shared a tent with another hunter. Since there were thirty-two hunters, there were sixteen tents. The pack of timber wolves mainly stayed with the hunter responsible for caring for them. That chore was kind of rotated. In the winter, the wolves went into the hunter's tents and shared it with them. They slept outdoors in the summer, depending on their location.
Artemis had her own tent, being a goddess and privacy and all that. Hers the same size as the others, with a deer on the tent flap. One of her hinds was often in the tent with her. Every tent was smaller on the outside then the inside.
They were enchanted. The other hunters looked at the returning ten, not expecting them back so soon. The group walked through the camp. Thalia took a deep breath as she went outside Artemis's tent. This was going to be hard to explain.
.
10 very long minutes later . . .
.
"Thalia," Artemis said slowly. "Let me see if I have this correct: You went to Alberta."
"Yes." Thalia confirmed.
She was still wearing her clothes from the night before. Her hair was still frozen a little, with a patch of snow in it. Her clothes were a little frozen stiff on the outside. The inside was warm, the jackets were enchanted, but she was still half-frozen, which isn't a pleasant feeling.
The others stood behind her in a line, their faces composed. They were trying to avoid snickering. They were still in yesterday's clothes, too. They attempted to keep a straight face, but it wasn't really working. Small smiles kept breaking out at the memory of yesterday.
"You set a camp after arriving and started to search. While sleeping, eight Hyperborean giants ambushed you after freezing Celyn and Naomi."
Celyn and Naomi winced at the reminder, but the smiles remained.
Thalia nodded. "Yes, Lady Artemis."
The others were now grinning, remembering what happened next.
"During the attack, you started a snowball fight." Artemis stared at Thalia like she was from outer space.
"Yes." Thalia ignored the giggles and snickers behind her.
Artemis stared at her for one more minute. Part of Artemis regretted asking. She didn't want to know what happened in the rest of Thalia's report. Like, for example, the reason Phoebe had marshmallows in her hair. Or what was in the Walmart bags that Diane and Nixie had.
"I shouldn't have asked." Artemis shook her head. "Never mind, I do not wish to hear the rest of your report, Thalia. You achieved the mission objective. You are dismissed, all of you. I must leave for an emergency meeting on Olympus."
There seemed to be a lot of those lately. Despite that, the Hunters were in good spirit.
They left the tent, shoving each other and laughing, mimicking the expressions of Frosty the giant and his buddies. Nixie was doubled over laughing as she walked, stumbling slightly to the campfire. She sat across from Thalia with Diane, Maggie, Kat, and Cass.
Thalia sat on the other side with Phoebe, Celyn, Naomi, and Lucy.
Jocelyn (They called her Joe for short) looked at her Maggie with wide eyes. They got along best. She asked Maggie, "Is it true?"
Thalia sighed as she sat down. The other hunter's attention turned to her.
"Is what true?" She asked back, stalling. It was too much to hope for that the others wouldn't find out.
Nixie, the little trickster, grinned. "I think they want to hear about the snowball fight."
The hunters who had never heard of a snowball fight cocked their heads to the side in confusion.
Thalia put her face in her hands. "Yes, it happened. End of story!"
"That isn't all of it, Thalia!" Phoebe said. She was grinning now, too.
Thalia vowed to get revenge. Sisters sucked, she decided.
"Yeah!" Celyn and Naomi agreed as one. "It isn't!"
The matching grins on their faces didn't reassure Thalia at all. Nor did the fact that they had spoken at the same time. That always meant they were up to something. She looked to the others for support, but to her dismay they encouraged Celyn, Naomi, Phoebe, and Nixie.
Cass nodded her head, smiling shyly. Maggie, Diane, Kat, and Lucy were nodding as well, all smiling wickedly at her. It wasn't every day they had the chance to tease Thalia about something. She was still pretty new to being a hunter, after all, but had skipped many things due to being the lieutenant. And plus, Thalia was Thalia. She tended to fry the eyebrows off of people who insulted her. By accident.
"How did it happen?" Joe asked excitedly.
Nixie grinned. Thalia froze. It was her 'I'm-up-to-something' grin that usually made anyone in the area turn and run. Before Thalia had time to process what Nixie was doing, Nixie had scooped up a snowball and thrown it. At Thalia.
"Like that!" She said.
A slew of curses went through her mind, as Thalia cleared the snow off her face. The others were dead silent, slightly afraid. The daughter of Zeus had a temper, and could be terrifying. A few still snickered.
"Why you little"-Thalia growled, before getting an idea. She smiled slightly to the others confusion. "You're wrong, Nixie."
Nixie's grin dropped, worried about what would happened. She frowned, "Thal-"
Nixie was interrupted by a snowball to the face. Her mouth dropped open as she saw Thalia standing up on the other side of the fire. She was smirking. The other hunters stared in shock.
"I believe it was something like that." Thalia stated matter-of-factly, a smirk on her face.
Nixie's shocked expression became determined. Although she had just learned what a snowball fight was (Thalia had to explain what it actually was to them, they only had a vague idea of it), she was good at it.
"Oh, it is so on. Bring it, Sparkles." Nixie challenged Thalia, who scowled fiercely at the nickname.
And the snowballs started flying. The hunters who did not know what a snowball or what a snowball fight was caught on quickly. Hunters choose side-Thalia, or Nixie. It was spilt half and half, and a full scale civil war erupted between the hunters in the form of a snowball fight.
Note to self, Thalia thought. The hunters take snowball fights way too seriously. Thalia grinned as she managed to peg Joe in the stomach. Joe went down. Including me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Meanwhile . . .
Cheerfully, Artemis swung her legs back and forth, sitting on the edge of her throne. She barely listened to the conversation around her, choosing instead to hum softly under her breath. For some reason, she had the ridiculous urge to grin.
As it was, she managed to keep her grin to a small smile, suppressing the urge to laugh. The other gods cast her a few looks, while her annoying brother, Apollo, looked at her in concern. Artemis ignored them, still feeling the surge of happiness and laughter from her hunters.
She never realized how grim their moods must be lately until . . . this. She could feel the emotions of her hunters, had an empathy link of sorts with Thalia, and knew immediately that these feelings were coming from all of her Hunters. Laughter threatened to bubble up within her, and she squashed it down.
"Now, to start this meeting . . ." Her father's voice started to drone on and on. Artemis tried to avoid sighing in boredom.
She was a goddess. She was mature, but still . . .
Zeus looked all grim and serious, and Artemis had the sudden urge to throw a snowball at him.
The Aftermath:
Artemis was extremely puzzled when she came back to her hunters. There was snow everywhere, for one. It was all over the silvery tents. And it was quiet in the camp. That in itself was weird. Immortal or not, the hunters of Artemis were still teenage girls.
They were never quiet.
It was cold, and the only light was coming from the fire, which was built up pretty high like a bonfire. Artemis began getting a slight feeling of foreboding. She ignored it; she would've known if something happened to the hunters, her emotions are connected strongly to them and she shares an empathy link of sorts with her lieutenant.
Artemis remembered the meeting. It had been extremely boring. Yet the whole time, she had felt immensely happy. She had to resist the urge to grin, but couldn't stop smiling. Artemis began to get a slight suspicion, remembering the report of Thalia from the Alberta mission. She remembered her earlier thoughts about pegging Zeus with a snowball.
The Hunters wouldn't seriously . . . Yes, Artemis realized. They would. She stared in slight shock at the sight in front of her. All of her hunters were sitting on the benches, laying or resting on each other. The littlest ones were curled in the laps of the 'older' ones.
The fire was hot, and it showed them curled up with blankets, mugs of hot cocoa everywhere. Their hair was slightly damp and frozen. Artemis could still see the snow in some of them. While she was at a boring meeting, her hunters had a snowball fight.
She rolled her eyes. No wonder she had been resisting the urge to grin and burst out laughing. Her hunters had been having a snowball fight while she had been sitting in an incredibly important, but incredibly dull meeting. Her eyes found Thalia, her lieutenant, sitting on the ground, sleeping. Nixie was sleeping beside her, her head resting on Thalia's shoulder.
On the frozen ground, the hunters who were on it had placed the rain covers of the tents for some protection, and were in their sleeping bags. Artemis had to give them credit for their resourcefulness, even if she still wondered why enchanted tents had rain covers in the first place.
Nixie had clearly stolen Thalia's blanket, and was curled up next to her, with her head on Thalia's shoulder. Artemis sighed. She quietly took Thalia's blanket from Nixie and gave it back to Thalia. Thalia shifted and opened her eyes slightly. They widened when she saw Artemis.
Thalia smiled sheepishly. "We made a mess, didn't we?"
"You're cleaning it up tomorrow." Artemis stated as a response.
Thalia groaned. She knew she shouldn't have had a snowball fight with Hyperborean giants. It all started when she threw that single, fateful snowball.
And so, when she saw the giant with Prometheus, she recognized what the giant was. A Hyperborean.
"A Hyperborean." Thalia said immediately. "The giants of the north. It's a bad sign that they sided with Kronos. They're usually peaceful."
Unless you start a snowball fight with them. Then they're vicious. Thalia thought. She nearly missed Percy's question.
"You've met them?" Percy asked.
Thalia didn't feel like elaborating, but she said, "Mmm. There's a big colony in Alberta."-Who I met eight members of and had a snowball fight with, Thalia mentally recalled. Unconsciously, she said, "You do not want to get into a snowball fight with those guys."
Lesson learned. Never again, Thalia swore. That was one mess she had not enjoyed cleaning up. And she definitely did not enjoy the bruises from the snowballs the Hyperboreans, and the other Hunters threw, even if some nectar and ambrosia healed her.
And so we have reached the end of the tale of Snowball Fights. Hopefully, more tales about the exploits of the Hunters of Artemis will be on the way when my muse comes back from vacation that it conveniently took when it sensed finals were coming 'round the mountain (school year).
Until then, I'll be dusting the cobwebs off the darkest corners of my seldom used mind (my muse likes to do the work), and exploring the labyrinth of works in my computer files. Of course, reviews are excellent bait for my muse to stop hiding, returning to hit me over the head with a bowling pin in order to whack my sanity out of me, and inspiration into me. And school is out now, so that'll help, too . . .
. . . But yeah, REVIEW. Let me know what you think, if you have any criticism, please make it constructive. Don't tell me it's horrible, and then not give any advice on how to improve my story.
REVIEW!