Their tale begins with a bus.
Thalia Grace, newly enlightened runaway and proud ten year old, had been doing almost nothing the whole day since she left her house for the last time at precisely 10.04 am- save riding the bus. She had been poring over the schedules for the bus numbers in her area; two specific buses went in rounds of forty minutes (split in two halves of twenty each). She had enough money in her pocket to buy herself a plane ticket, but she was ten and indecisive; how could she have chosen a destination when she could not even decide between curry and original for her instant noodle flavour?
She had taken a seat at the top level of the double-decker to avoid the bleary eyed driver's suspicion and had been observing the passengers that came and went since the moment she got on this specific bus, at about eleven in the evening. This round, especially, was full of bright eyed teenagers with exciting purpose in their too-loud voices. She scrunched herself tighter in her leather jacket. Outside, the criss-crossing highways displayed a blurred view (through fogged windows) of blinking streetlights and mirage-like headlamps.
Presently, the clump of overactive teenagers alighted, but someone remained.
All Thalia could see was a tuft of blonde hair that belonged to a boy who sat at the front, watching the world through the window. He was, like her, hunched in his own jacket (a navy sports one) and looked to be about her height.
Thalia rubbed her eyes and watched the boy. A few minutes later, he twisted around and she dropped her eyes; but not before realising that his face was youthful, about her age, probably a bit older at most.
The bus finished a set and like her, he remained for another round. Her curiousity was piqued.
Because she was ten and alone and afraid, she stepped forwards. As she approached, she noticed that he had a tube of chocolate chips (the cheap kind that somehow tasted more authentic than the expensive ones) in his hands and her stomach grumbled. The last thing she had eaten had been a soggy packet of chips that had made oil stains on the paper cone, about three hours ago. His head jerked up and she arranged her features to look territorial and unapproachable.
His eyes, she noticed, were very, very blue.
Hesitantly, a tiny bit shyly, he was the first to speak.
"Would you like a cookie?"
Thalia Grace was not one to accept charity but companionship was a different matter. "Yeah, that would be… that would be nice."
She sat down next to him, awkwardly perching on the edge of the seat and he handed her cookie. It crumbled as she took it, bits of chocolate falling into her lap.
"Thanks." She said, somewhat uncertainly.
"I'm Luke." He said, by way of introduction. "Castellan, that's my last name."
"I'm Thalia." She said, ravenously swallowing the biscuit. He waited but she did not proffer a surname.
There was a pregnant pause before he spoke again, "I saw you when I first came up. You've been on here a whole round. What gives?"
Then Thalia was alert again, her feet poised on the toes. "You were here for a whole round too."
He was unabashedly honest. "I'm running away."
Thalia felt a trace of chocolate edge her tongue. A beam of light cradled his left cheek.
"I'm running away too." She said softly.
Luke took in her expensive leather jacket, the branded pack in her laps. "Running from naughty little mummy who cut your credit card?" He said snottily and she tensed. The fact that he had the nerve to think she was nothing but a little princess, when he didn't even know her, was infuriating; the haughty look on his face only pushed her to spitting out, without thinking, the next sentence.
"I'm running away because my mother lost my little brother and I see monsters, so you can shut your face!" She stood angrily, preparing to leave while drenched in the righteous fury that children very often posess, when he grabbed her by the elbow, his voice at once pleading and relieved.
"I see monsters too."
They stared at each other, two mad children in a world that pretended to be sane, until she sat down again.
And so, it began.
ooOOoo
They stayed in a variety of places; from shelters to train stations, from abandoned houses to empty staircases. It had been a whole year and they had, with very little money in their pockets by now, braved through everything that life has seen fit to throw at them.
And those things, things like fighting side by side against a rabid hellhound and seeing each other matted with dirt and crusty-eyed could only serve to cement a friendship. They had been at their worst with each other, and they know the worst of each other's stories, but still they were together, laughing at a flickering comedy that was showcasing on the multiple screens at the electronics shop.
They were still friends.
ooOOoo
Thalia Grace was crying. She was approaching her eleventh birthday but that was beside the point. Her empty stomach was being eaten raw and she smelled terrible; crusted blood lined the underneath of her grubby nails and her leg was sore from the whole day'sworth of running from the Cyclopes which had spoken to her in the voice of a young boy she had once lost.
The house they were in was an empty, broken thing of peeling wallpaper and broken windows, the jagged edges glinting in the waning light of the full moon.
There were few things Thalia prided herself on, and one of them was being strong. Her hunger? Nothing. The fact that she was hurting all over? Nothing. But despite her front of strength, she was still a child and she was afraid and hungry.
But this time, she was not alone.
The door to the room slammed open and Luke walked in.
She quickly rubbed her eyes. "Go away!"
"Um," he spoke awkwardly, hearing the choked tears gathered in her throat. "Thalia… is everything… um."
"Everything's fine!" She snapped, turning so that she faced away from him. "Go away!"
"I got you a cake." He stumbled, in an effort to make the situation disappear by avoiding it. In his hands was a somewhat flattened, small square box. Thalia scrambled up, taking slow steps towards him, grateful for the darkness that hid a view of tear tracked, dirt-ridden face.
"Where'd you get the money?" She asked in disbelief.
"You're most welcome, your grace." He said sarcastically and Thalia stiffened- she hadn't told him her surname yet and the coincidence in the chill room made the hair on the back of her arms stand up.
"Thanks." She rolled her eyes, reaching for the box, but Luke held it out of her reach, sniggering at her attempts.
"I," he said, somewhat proudly, "Stole some money. Rich dips down the street won't notice it anyway. I also raided their fridge. We have bacon!"
"Bacon!"
"Say thank you."
Thalia glared at him and stuck out her tongue in the way of children. "Shut up!" His face looked a little crestfallen, so she quickly backtracked. "Thanks, Luke."
The corners of his lips lifted a little and he finally gave the box to her. "You're welcome."
They sat down on the floorboards, dividing the cake between them (Luke insisting that Thalia have a bigger piece and Thalia protesting that he didn't have to be such a boy and let's just both have half, that's fair).
Her stomach, full of bacon and cake, was satisfied, and so was she.
Though Luke had eaten considerably lesser, he was still smiling- though trying to hide it- when he went to bed.
ooOOoo
"When are you going to tell me your last name?"
"Why? It's not important."
"I just want to know!"
"Why? It's not important."
"You are a terrible person."
"You are a nosy little prat."
"You are worse."
"Not as bad as you."
"Why don't you tell me?"
"No."
"That's not-"
"Because it's related to my mother, Luke, and I hate her! You know I hate her, why do you keep bringing it up?"
.
"I'm sorry, okay. You don't have to tell me-"
"Grace. It's Grace. Are you happy now?"
"Aw, don't be like that."
"Hey, you made me tell you!"
"Okay, I'll tell you a secret."
"Go on…"
"I… I miss my mum."
"You do?"
"A little bit, yeah. Sometimes, I guess."
"I miss mine too."
ooOOoo
There were, Thalia knew, worse things than dying. And that was how she had come to be there, on Half-Blood Hill, with the wind in her ears and her eyes wet but furious as her friends scrambled their way to safety because Annabeth would not go without Luke and she'd be damned before she let both of them die.
He hadn't wanted to go because he was stubborn and impossible and because he always wanted to play the hero.
He hadn't wanted to go because they were a set, a package deal. One without the other was unthinkable, unknowable; they were best friends and maybe more, but they were always together.
And that was why she was standing there, trembling despite her best efforts, staring down the monster. Behind her, her friends were still minutes away from safety.
That gave her all the courage she needed.
Thalia Grace stood up and charged.
ooOOoo
This is when she started to make Time her enemy. She is only distantly aware of what revolves around her; sometimes there is a burst of liquid sunshine, in other times she hears faraway noises, cheerful and glorious.
Mostly, she remembers.
The images come in broken, jagged snippets; it is a frustrating jigsaw puzzle that she simply cannot put together, although she is older than the age written on the box.
She remembers a blonde haired little girl, a baby sister that reminds her of a blonde haired little boy who tried to eat a stapler once.
She remembers being strangely sad as men enter and leave her mother's room, and she remembers red lipstick and the tinge of alcohol in the dawn.
She remembers a boy and the word friend, and for sure she knows the two are connected in the way the stars are like pieces of the moon. She remembers an empty bus and birthday cake.
There are many things Thalia Grace remembers as she drifts in a limbo that time does not want to make sense of, and when she remembers, she is alive.
ooOOoo
"You're not Luke."
Those were the first words that slipped glibly of her long unused tongue. It was very strange. That girl who was nearly her age was no Annabeth because Annabeth was small and in need of- though loath to accept, somewhat- protection.
There were a whole variety of people of different shades and different eyes, but there was no Luke.
And it was Luke she wanted because she had fought with him, starved with him, laughed with him. There was no one else she trusted with her life; not even Annabeth because Annabeth was supposed to be the protected, not the protector.
This was wrong. This was very, very wrong.
ooOOoo
Thalia knew he had been bitter, and she had agreed with him on many counts. The Gods were terrible parents, and they were not amazing people, to put it nicely. But Luke's aims, noble though his goals may have started out as, were not in accordance to her tastes.
One of the hardest things that Thalia had ever done in her life was to stand there fighting against the one she had once fought with.
He had begged her to join him but she could not. She would not.
He had betrayed them, her and Annabeth.
Luke had betrayed her.
Was this even Luke? It was hard for her to believe that the boy who once did everything he could to protect his tiny, makeshift family was the same one who was staring at them, poised for battle, a weapon in his trembling hands.
And as hard as it was, Thalia had no choice but to stand against her once-friend with the wind in her ears and her eyes wet but furious.
She charged.
ooOOoo
Thalia had not been there to see Luke change his mind. There were many things that she had not gotten to tell him, and that he had not managed to tell her.
But all of that paled in the colossal, irreversible fact that he was dead.
How could someone just die? How could they one second be breathing, the blood trawling through their veins as they felt and saw and loved, and the next second be a cold, lifeless corpse?
And she was a hunter, immortal and free and unbound to things such as Time and Age.
Thalia was not one for ceremony. She reviled the stifling nature behind a structured act. But despite all that, she was still standing with a scarf pulled up against her lips to protect her from the cold. The sky was a harsh, burning purple that was icy at the edges and the snow was soft around her boots. Flakes of crystalline sky-drops brushed against her eyelashes, getting caught in the scratchy fabric of her gloves.
A bus was approaching the stop and she hailed it, a leather-covered thumb sticking out. Sluices of snow-drenched sludge slipped up the gravel and fell back into a winter puddle as Thalia boarded the bus.
She crossed to the top deck and sat at the very front, where she could watch the world through the window.
It was quiet in the bus.
If you had stood, in that moment, by one of those brick churches that Thalia had passed, you would have heard the faint chorus of carols breaking through the icy night.
ooOOoo
Thalia didn't know if she wanted to meet Luke in his reincarnations. On one hand, she would be forced to confront her hurt and betrayal, but on the other, she knew that he had been sorry in the end, that he had chosen the right thing.
At the same time, while the reincarnation would be Luke in essence, he simply would not be Luke, would he?
She did not think she could bear that.
ooOOoo
But the world moved on, as it tends to do even as it crushed down upon you. Thalia had found her brother again and that moment of pure, unadulterated joy was one of those feelings she wished that she could keep in a box, stow away in a tangible object. It had given her a tiny slice of hope because it had shown her that lost things do return, in the way that the sea brings back the treasures she steals.
ooOOoo
Here is something about immortality: It scares Thalia Grace.
It is human nature to put a stamp on things, to slide them neatly into a box and tie them up with a ribbon. That is why we invented the concept of time. We have packaged eternity into bite sized pieces: you can break infinity into years, years into weeks, weeks into days, days into hours.
We are measured by beginnings and endings; from the first breath a baby takes to the dying gasp of the old. We start at school, and there is a graduation to end that. We start at work and there is retirement to finish that.
Thalia had once been told, by a wizened old lady who carried flowers of sunshine colours in a wooden bucket, that as you aged, time went faster and faster until you stood at the lip of the grave with all your years behind you.
It stood to reason, then, that when Thalia stopped aging, the hands of time did not move as well.
ooOOoo
That knowledge, the heady and sometimes disturbing knowledge, oftentimes pressed upon her as the years continued to pass in almost milk-lavender laziness. There were weddings and baby showers, things she could not quite comprehend because she was the modern day Peter Pan (with the Found Girls, instead of the Lost Boys, but still). There were Adult Worries- spoken in throwaway or tense voices with hands gripped around glass stems- such as balancing the checkbook, or late bills. Her old friends- who were literally older now- would speak to her about "keeping the kids well, y'know? It's hard when they don't want to keep curfew and Gods, do they have to keep skipping class?"
Somewhere along the line, Thalia thought bitterly, her friends had forgotten that they used to be very much the same as the children that they both adored and complained about. As time went on, the old meetings she attended grew stranger and more painful for her. She was a weed amongst the roses, a thorn against petals.
She still had not seen Luke.
ooOOoo
It was a pale autumn evening when Artemis told her the news. The goddess's hair was still damp at the ends from her morning wash, her skin dewy and her eyes fresh. Beneath her bare feet, the still-sleeping grass was soft and ticklish.
Artemis hesitated after Thalia finished her bow- still short and somewhat quick, like her nature, even after all these years.
"Thalia, my lieutenant," her voice was like spun glass, "I have some... news for you, dear one."
"Yes, my lady?"
Artemis pursed her lips. "Luke's reincarnation... departed from us today."
Again with the old feeling, with the ironic, metaphoric falling from the cliff. Thalia would have staggered backwards but she told herself she was stronger than that, so she stood still staunch and proud in the growing sunlight. "How so, my lady?"
"It was a fire. He was very brave, sister, for a boy. He tried to save a child. The child lived, he did not."
How familiar, was it not?
Thalia accepted the news bravely, nodding and thanking Artemis. She would have broken down and wept but she took the news in her stride. That day, her arrows flew extra straight, her eyes as bright as the lightening that flashed through the purple skies.
ooOOoo
It has been a hundred years.
Even the funerals had died. Delicate lace invitations to weddings had turned into somber envelopes of departure. She had stood at many of these, and time and time again, a phrase was oft repeated. The phrase dripped of mournful lips and slid its way up ebony sleeves, etching itself smugly into tear tracked cheeks.
"And we will meet again."
Those whose lives were certain to meet an end, Thalia has realised, were sometimes luckier than those whose lives stretch on in an endless waltz. In that knowledge of the Reunion, they could find something to cling on to, because when all is said and done, hope still remained.
There would be no meet-again for Thalia Grace, because her journey would have no ending.
ooOOoo
Time can crust its way out of the mountains, it can bleed the streams and oceans dry, but people will still be people. And like their ancestors before them, they would always find something to fight about.
Thalia knew that because right now, she was in the middle of another war. Country was pitted against country, person was pitted against person and bones were fighting bare bones. With the new technology and things like nuclear weapons dangling in the hands of a faceless government, the future had never seemed so bleak.
But like a boy with black hair and ocean eyes had told her long ago, with childish and honest wisdom: there was always hope.
Her hunters and her were waiting, hidden behind corners and behind dry trees, waiting for the enemy to arrive so that they could strike. A bead of sweat, glistening in the harsh sunlight, dripped down the side of Thalia's cheek.
And then, a cold voice-
"Come out! We know you're hiding in there and goddamit, you better not fire!"
Thalia rolled her eyes- as if that would stop them- when she heard a sound that chilled her blood. It was the sound of children, trapped and pleading.
The bastards were using hostages.
She inched around the wall she had been leaning against. The children, surrounded by a ring of soldiers, were trapped in a dusty old school-bus. She could see, through a window filled with cobweb cracks, a flash of blonde. Thalia let loose a stream of curses, her list expanded from years of learning and travelling. She was still wondering what to do when a voice from next to her hissed.
"Thank God for us, eh?"
She spun around immediately, the barrel of her gun pressed against the chest of a boy who looked to be about two years older than her, superficially of course. With his auburn curls and freckled, honest face, he was completely unfamiliar to her.
Then Thalia saw his eyes.
They were very, very blue.
She could not help the gasp that escaped from her lips; harsh and almost inaudible in the fear-twisted air. The boy creased his forehead, his blue eyes shrinking in confusion. The look in them was as old and wild as the seas.
"I know you." He said, his mouth forming around the words strangely.
Thalia shook her head, trying to focus on the present. She had waited for Luke for years- if this even was him- she could clearly wait another half an hour because ragged children in a ragged bus needed their help.
She could swear that Father Time was having a right old laugh at her expense.
"What's the plan?" She asked, her voice tight.
The boy shook his head, looking very lost. "Um, yeah... I've got men up there, ranging the hills. We're pretty good shots so we should be able to hit just the guys surrounding them."
"Sure." Thalia paused. "What about my team?"
"It's okay. We'll take this."
"To hades- hell, it's okay. We're going to have a part in this as well!" Gods, he was so infuriating! Perhaps this really was Luke.
"Why are you so eager to fight in this?"
"Why do you care?"
"I just want to know!"
A memory, clear and sharp as an ice needle, sprung to her mind. It was a hazy vision of a conversation, long ago, that had gone somewhat like this. He was Luke, she knew this now; it was in the way he said the last sentence, the way the words fell of his lips. It was in the way his eyes looked in the sun.
This was Luke.
"What?" he asked again, though he was looking the same way as she did; they looked as if something was scratching at their skulls, prying to get out.
"You shoot." Thalia said desperately. "Get your men to shoot the first wave. We go in with the second, but the goal is to protect the kids."
"No problem, your grace."
They looked at each other, the boy frowning hard just after he said that.
"Just give the signal." Thalia said tightly.
The silence pounded heavily for the few minutes before the bullets exploded into the raging silence; blood and bodies filled their blurred vision. Thalia rushed forwards with the rest of the hunters, gritty dust engraving itself into their skin as they ran towards the bus.
The bus was, miraculously, unharmed; the children were screaming louder than ever. Before Thalia knew it, the boy was next to her. They could not pry the doors open, they seemed to be locked.
"I'm going in!" Thalia commanded, her hair flying in the air. "Phoebe, get the rest to continue fighting!"
"What the hell are you doing?" The boy yelled back.
"Care to join me?" She asked as she pulled herself up to the driver's door, slammed the window in and slid into the seat. The boy scrambled in on the opposite edge. Blood from her knuckles was slipping onto the wheel as Thalia tried desperately to jam a rusted key back into the lock. Around them, the noise of battle was raging, a sound wild and keen in her ears. The bus churned to life, speeding its way through the chaos, leaving the rat-tat firing of guns.
"Where are we going?"
"I saw a safe spot on our way out here; we just need to get these kids away from the battle!"
Thalia was speeding up so that she could get the kids to safety and then return as quickly as possible. Overhead, the sun urged them on their way, lighting the trail for them with its glorious light.
The boy's transmitter started to buzz.
"Are the kids with you?"
"Yeah, we're taking them to-"
"St. Augustine's!" Thalia pitched in.
"St. Augustine's!"
"That's too far off, you'll be intercepted before you can even reach. Make a stop at the old train station, I'll get some men there to pick the kids up. Once they're gone, go back and fight."
"Yes, sir!"
He turned to Thalia, who nodded to show she understood.
The old train station was a broken down, dilapidated collection of skeleton pieces of wood and sad bits of glass. Twisted train tracks stood rusted with both weeds and bursts of golden dandelion growing from them. Sweaty and starting to calm down, Thalia and the boy got off the bus, breathing hard.
"They're about five minutes away." The boy said and seeing him standing with a broken house behind him reminded Thalia vividly of memories that she had long tried to suppress and-
"Shit."
A jeep had rolled up to them, filled with about fifteen soldiers. The boy's hand, taut with tension, drifted over to his transmitter. The minute he pulled it out however, a well aimed shot from the men in the jeep destroyed the thing.
"What now?" Thalia hissed as the men got out.
"We can't leave." The boy said. "If we get back in the bus and try to make a run for it, they'll shoot at us; might even hit the kids. But we can stay here and postpone that, we can make up time..."
Thalia nodded, something familiar filling her chest.
"You said we have five minutes?" She asked, her hand already to her gun. "We'll fill those in so that your guys can make it here in time. We'll distract them. That'll be enough time for them to come and get these kids away to safety."
"Yeah."
Thalia smiled at the boy almost mournfully and he understood. A banging noise from behind them made them turn; a little kid with short blonde curls was observing the scene fearfully.
"My God." The boy whispered to himself, his face almost transcendent and brimming with something. "I..."
"What?"
"It's just..."
"Step away from the bus, please." The man who spoke motioned them away, but they stood still.
"We're going to die, aren't we?" The boy asked Thalia. He looked very, very young.
"Yes." Thalia said simply; because she knew that hunters could fall in battle. She had seen it time and time again; she had seen it from the moment Zoe Nightshade had become a part of the night sky after the girl had died to protect her friends.
Thalia had sought out that constellation everytime she could see the stars; as she did even now, more than a century later.
Just before they all raised their weapons for the final fight, Thalia looked at the boy and spoke a single word, her voice both pleading and relieved. There was simply nothing else for it, she had to know.
"Luke?"
Something shifted in those blue eyes, as if a box had been unlocked, and a new word fell from his lips. It was spoken uncertainly, but when he said it, he looked as if he had come home.
"Th- Thalia?"
Her heart, not yet wizened and shrivelled, stopped. "Yes." She whispered, "Yes, Luke."
"I do know you." His expression turned wistful, like the first drops of snow on a new winter dawn.
Thalia smiled and turned to face the enemy, just as she had done over a century ago. The boy stood next to her and for one moment, she was standing on the windswept Half-Blood Hill with the wind in her ears and her eyes both wet and furious.
With the boy beside her, Thalia Grace stood and charged.
ooOOoo
So the story has reached its end; or its beginning, depending on how you see things.
Their tale begins with a bus.