Hey guys. This is a story I've wanted to write for a couple of years now, so hopefully you all enjoy. I don't have the entire plot worked out by any means, just different parts I want to include, so feel free to leave some ideas, or something you want to see.
One thing I want to add: Although this takes place several hundred years after Heroes of Olympus and such, the world will be for all intents and purposes the same as it was then. Same technology, same sports and countries, and so on. This will make it easier to understand. Also, a some of the events in Blood of Olympus, House of Hades, etc. will not have happened the way they did in the books; I want to change some of them to enhance the way this story flows.
Thanks for giving this a chance, and read on!
It was a dark night. The moon was shrouded by unseen clouds and the stars were veiled. Thus it was when Annabeth walked to the edge of the cliff, the churning grey ocean was almost invisible far below. A cold wind sliced through the air, and not even the silver parka and gear Annabeth was wearing could stop it. Her honey blonde hair whipped in the breeze.
Annabeth stared down at the ocean below. It seemed that the Ocean was always in an uproar whenever she went to it. Annabeth couldn't blame it, she guessed. If she was the ocean, she would be ticked off too. Still, she couldn't help it; the ocean always calmed her down, though she figured it wasn't the same vice versa. Annabeth always took these times to collect her thoughts and think; that was what she was best at, after all.
She sat down on the edge of the cliff and smiled. This was very similar to the time at Westover Hall, so long ago. Had it already been almost five hundred years? Incredible. Those had been great times, though. She'd been through everything— those were the happiest moments of her life, she thought. Especially the times with... Percy.
Annabeth put her head in her hands and massaged her temples with her thumbs. Come on, forget it! It's been almost five hundred years—he's dead! Stop thinking about him! Besides, you're a Hunter of Artemis—no boys! A tear slipped out and rolled down her cheek without her noticing. Even though he was your best friend, and he saved your life countless times and you saved his. And you broke up with him, and he went missing days later. She stopped her thinking. Why had she been so stupid? She had everything she wanted in a guy with Percy, and she blew it, for a completely stupid reason. Way to go, daughter of Athena. Granted Athena didn't seem too upset that they broke up, but that's beside the point.
She heard the sound of a light footfall on snow behind her. Without looking back, she miserably said, "Hey, Thals."
The daughter of Zeus plopped down on the ground next to her. The silver tiara rested on her head, signifying her position of Lieutenant of Artemis. "Well hello there, Miss-Ray-of-Sunshine."
Annabeth just glared back.
Thalia held up her hands. "Whoa, easy there." She paused. "What's wrong?"
"I was thinking of him again."
"Uh-oh," Thalia replied, mainly to herself as she knew that her friend was just going to keep talking anyways.
"I came out here to clear my mind, but I made the mistake of looking at the ocean for too long. Then he popped into my head and wouldn't leave."
Thalia sat down and wrapped her arm around Annabeth's shoulders. "Come on, Annie, it's been hundreds of years already; you have to let it go."
Annabeth buried her head in her hands. "I betrayed him."
"No you didn't. You did what you thought you had to do; he left of his own free will."
"But now he's dead, and I'll never get to see him again. My last memory of him is the broken look on his face that day."
Thalia paused. She always had to be wary when Annabeth was in one of these fits. Knowing nothing she could say would really comfort Annabeth, all she said was, "Come on. We'll go get some hot cocoa and we can talk about it later, sound good?"
Annabeth nodded almost imperceptibly and followed Thalia back to camp. After a little hot chocolate and some chat with some of the other huntresses, Annabeth was back to normal. Well, at least on the outside; it seemed like she had forgotten the incident by now. They all talked and laughed around the campfire that night, as most nights went. Only Thalia noticed the sad look Annabeth would get when she thought nobody was looking. Her gaze would fall towards the snowy ground and the smile disappeared, but as soon as someone else laughed or she was called by name, she would return right back to normal, with a twinkle in her eyes and a cheery smile upon her face. Before they returned to their tents, Thalia gave one last concerned glance towards Annabeth. That night, all but three people went to bed happy and relaxed.
Artemis, however, was not relaxed. The monsters they'd been pursuing for weeks had not been found yet. Actually, they had found no trace of them whatsoever. The Huntresses had heard rumor of powerful monsters causing havoc, so they followed the trail. The hunt led them over multiple weeks to a part of Canada just north of Maine. Here they were, in the middle of December, and still no sign of any monsters.
The past few decades, centuries even, had been very odd indeed. Not only had powerful monsters been almost completely unheard of, there had been a huge decrease in the amount of normal monsters roaming the world. As glad as those tidings may seem, Artemis was fairly sure that it was a precursor to something large and sinister, but nothing had appeared to back that theory up.
Then there was her visitor, Mister Winter himself. He'd shown up twice in the past two months, both times warning her of things to come and trying to persuade her to abandon all present hunts and return closer to home. Sure, she'd met him many times before, mostly at Olympus, but these warnings she would not heed, even though he was a close friend to her.
The second time he showed up was the previous week. That had been an... interesting evening as she remembered it.
Artemis stood in her tent poring over ancient scrolls and writings. Her brother insisted to get a smartphone instead, but she wasn't the one to abandon the old ways. She had been searching for hours on something to explain the lack of monsters, but nothing had come up. She was in a particularly rotten mood when she felt the temperature drop and heard a voice speak behind her.
"You know, as nifty as scrolls may be, they really are not very efficient. Are you sure that you don't want to try the Internet or something?"
Artemis rolled her eyes and allowed herself a small smile. Here he was again—one of the few males that she didn't feel like killing (well, usually), and certainly the only one she would consider a close friend. She turned around and looked at her visitor.
He was dressed in light jeans and a tight-fitting, light blue polo shirt despite the winter raging on outside. He wore white moccasins that matched his messy, snow-white hair and had aviator sunglasses covering his icy blue eyes. When she turned around, he paused for a moment and rubbed his hand across his face and said, "Um, could you change to, oh, I don't know, normal age perhaps, because it's really hard to talk to you when you look like a kid."
"I haven't even started talking yet," she pointed out, but she complied anyways and changed into a young woman.
"Thank you; that's much better."
Artemis nodded. "You are here...why?"
"Oh, you know why I'm here."
"I've told you already, I can't just abandon—,"
"You don't understand," he interrupted. Artemis could feel his cold gaze through the sunglasses. "Something is stirring, something powerful. I've explored this much over the past few decades, and I think whatever it is will be coming soon."
"How can you be so sure?"
He took off his sunglasses and tossed them aside, where they evaporated into frost. His icy eyes peered straight into her soul, it seemed. After centuries, Artemis still couldn't get used to those eyes, and she mustered her will to keep eye contact. "I went down to Tarturus," he started darkly, and the temperature in the tent dropped even more than it had when he first arrived. "Things there are...worse than expected."
She frowned. "How so?"
He grimaced. "There are stirrings deep in the dark. Things awaking that have not stirred for eons."
Artemis crossed her arms. "How does this affect me?"
"Whatever is coming would very much so like to destroy or capture a goddess and kill one of Olympus's fighting forces."
Artemis glared up at him. Oh how infuriating it was that he was the taller of the two. "So now I cannot defend myself or my huntresses?"
The man held up his hands in surrender. "I never said that."
"You implied it."
He breathed out deeply and put his hand on Artemis's shoulder. "Something is coming. Why do you think there have been almost no monsters the past few centuries? They're building up their forces, and the attack is coming soon. If you stay out here, you will be attacked, and don't expect hellhounds and dracaenae.
"Who's 'they'?"
He said nothing at all; he just stared her–- his message was conveyed clearly enough. Snow swirled around his feet and up towards his knees in his agitation. She sucked in her breath.
"It's been too soon; are you sure it's her?"
"If it's not her, she's behind it. That much I am sure about."
Artemis stared at the ground. To abandon the hunt? That was something she would not do. "I'm sorry, but I cannot leave the hunt; I will stay and hunt—these monsters pose a threat to Olympus."
He surged forward and gently grasped her upper arm. "You and your hunters are reckoning with a greater force than you know of. Remember what happened to me?"
The last part stuck in her mind, but she shoved it aside and continued.
"I am the Goddess of the Hunt; I will not abandon it. What happened to you will not happen to me."
Frustration was evident in his face. "Very well, but don't expect any help."
She stared defiantly at him. "We do not need your help. I do not need your help. We are perfectly fine on our own."
"I might not be able to bail you guys out again."
"Leave!" she commanded.
"I didn't want to have to bring this up, but if it wasn't for me, there would be no you, right now, and no Olympus either. Not after the last time you wouldn't heed my advice."
"Be gone!"
The visitor help up his hands in submission, his eyebrows narrowed in annoyance and anger. His icy eyes left one last chill upon Artemis's soul, and turned to walk out of the tent. At the last moment he stopped and snapped his fingers. On a table appeared box-shaped object covered by a cloth. "Oh, by the way, happy birthday." And then he disappeared in a puff of snow, a cold wind ripping through the tent in a second before dissipating.
Artemis rolled her eyes and smothered a smile. How he found out her birthday in the first place was something she didn't even try to figure out.
She tried to shrug off his warning, but part of it stayed with her for a long time. The hunt would go on, but if what he said was true...
In the end, when Artemis walked out of her tent holding a snow white jackalope with ice blue eyes, her hunters were very much confused, especially since many of them thought they heard another voice inside of the tent. When asked, Artemis responded that a guest brought news from Olympus.
Now she sat in her tent with her jackalope on her lap. Something had felt wrong all day, and she had a growing sense of unease as the day progressed. Artemis would not abandon her hunt; that was for sure, but a part of her wondered if she was being rash. Was she endangering the lives of her huntresses? That's what she was afraid of.
Artemis shook off the dark feeling. She was the Goddess of the Hunt; no one will interfere with her hunt. With that she retired to bed. Night fell upon the camp.
Well, hopefully you all enjoyed. Please leave a review, telling me what you thought, or how I could make this better. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
~TheDragon12
