T a l e s F r o m U n d e r T h e W i l l o w T r e e

The story of three special demigods, their escape from the past, their new adventures, and their new lives.

That one year they spent in bliss, running around, defeating monsters, and learning about themselves before it all got so complicated.

Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth.

This is how it all began.

C h a p t e r O n e - R e a d y O r N o t , H e r e W e G o

Sometimes she liked to close her eyes and pretend that she was an explorer traveling to every corner of the world, seeing things people could only dream of, and experiencing the mysterious wonders of the world. This way she could pretend that her time spent with her mother, with this pathetic excuse for a family, was just a small rest, and that later when she was ready and prepared to leave for her travels again, she could do so and leave every thing behind.

Sometimes she liked to pretend that she was a sailor, one who had been through a fierce storm and been washed along the shore. Her ship was wrecked, so she had no other choice than to stay with this lady and go to school, until she could pick up the pieces to her ship and sail the wide-open seas again.

Sometimes she liked to pretend that she was a lone soul traveling between bodies of kids so to experience different lives and pick one that was right for her. So this life right now was just one unlucky kid's body she was visiting, not like she would be stuck in this miserable life forever.

But what good did pretending do, when all it brought was a bitter taste in her mouth and salty teardrops?

Because pretending, trying to make herself believe in something silly, distracted her from the devastating truth that this dark empty hole was her life and that she still hadn't found a way to escape it.

Her mother was beautiful. Her dark hair radiated a shine that would make even the sun jealous. Her delicate porcelain skin made her resemble a princess. Her big bright eyes seemed magical. And her body's natural curves were just a bonus.

She should be proud to have such a beautiful mother. She should be proud to have a mother who gave her a home. She should be proud to have a mother who supplied her with food and who allowed her to watch TV, even on school nights. She should be proud to have a mother. Period.

Or at least that's what Thalia's mother told her.

And Thalia tried –she really did try- to be thankful for her mom. She knew there were kids who were orphans, kids who were homeless, kids who were dying on the streets alone and afraid, so, of course, she should be thankful. But it was easier said than done.

It was hard to be thankful for a mother who was never there, one who forgot about Career Day, forgot to pick her own daughter up from school, forgot to buy milk to go along with Thalia's cereal, forgot to pay the air conditioning bill in the middle of June, and who, once, forgot to buy a present for her daughter on Christmas.

All these little mishaps, these incidents were proof that Thalia could not depend on her own mother because she had let her down too many times. And so Thalia learned that she was on her own.

She did not have any friends at school because most of the kids thought she was weird or wrong in the head or had anger management problems.

She had moved to so many schools, getting transferred for unexplainable things that weren't even her fault. But it didn't matter if she went to a new school, every time she still found kids who were stupid and ignorant and who thought of nothing better to do with their lives than to complain about school work, discuss last night's episode of American Idol, and spend tedious hours shopping for clothes.

So she was on her own at school too. Strangers at both school and her own home, she decided to keep to herself because, after all, she could not let herself down, she could not make fun of herself, she could not exclude herself from activities. Thalia was her own best friend, and she was one hundred percent okay with that.

Sure, it got lonely. Sometimes she would feel a sense of longing wash through her when she saw a girl at school hand out invitations to her birthday party. She felt tears swim around in her eyes when she saw friends running across the hallways to give each other a huge hug before they parted ways for the summer. Yes, it stung, knowing that she'd never be apart of that, knowing that there would never in a million years be someone who ran across a hallway just to hug her, Thalia Grace.

So when it all got a little harder to bear, when putting that fake smile on everyday seemed impossible, when the thought of going to school made her want to crawl into a hole and die, she decided to never let anyone know. Instead she disguised her face carefully. She learned how to shoot daggers from her eyes and how to scare someone without ever saying a word. She learned how to scrunch her face up, so it seemed like she was always mad or angry at the world. She learned how to make herself more distant from regular people; she learned how to stay in her little bubble and never come out.

And for a long time, she almost happy. Almost.

Then one day, Thalia's mom had told her that she had lost her job, but not to worry, because she was going to get a new one, a better one soon.

Thalia had wanted to believe her so badly, but one afternoon their power suddenly went off. Then the TV wouldn't turn on and the air conditioning stopped working. And when her mother told her that if anyone called or rang the doorbell asking for her mother she should lie and say that she wasn't home, Thalia knew something was up.

She confronted her mother and, of course, her mother just shook her head and told her everything was fine because she was going to get a job.

But weeks passed and nothing changed. It was brutally hot in the apartment, so hot that Thalia lounged around in nothing more than a thin tank top and short shorts and opened up all the windows. She lined up candles all around the room, soaking up the little light they offered. And to top it all off, Thalia's mother was home less and less.

One regular morning, as Thalia walked out the front door to get to her bus stop, her mother came out of the apartment with her and walked to her car. Thalia didn't bother asking her where she was going, she simply watched her mother drive away and never once look back. When Thalia got home later that day, she arrived to an empty apartment. She waited, but even as the moon crept into the sky and the day pervaded into night, her mother was a no-show. And she still hadn't shown up the next day. Or the next day. Or the day after that.

Four days. Thalia Grace had lived in her apartment, going to school, doing her homework, cooking food, for four days all by herself.

After the third day, she grew worried. Where was her mother? Had she abandoned her for once and for all? Was she alright?

Thalia called her mom's cell phone about a hundred times that fourth day. She'd excuse herself to the bathroom during school and dial the familiar number behind the privacy of a bathroom stall. She'd call her number over and over again at night as she lay in her bed, clutching the phone to her ear, hearing the menacing dial tone, waiting – waiting, desperately- for that familiar voice to just answer and assure her daughter that she was alright, that they would be alright.

But every time the stupid call would go straight to voicemail.

So then finally, on the fifth day that her mother hadn't shown up, Thalia hopped onto the school bus in the morning as usual. When she got home in the afternoon, the apartment was still empty, much to her disappointment.

Then at around, midnight she heard someone stumble through the front door. Frightened, Thalia grabbed the closest object near her – her lamp – and crept out of her room quietly. She heard a sigh and then a hand touched her shoulder. Thalia reflexively swung the lamp, but in the darkness of the apartment, the lamp slipped from her hands and shattered to the ground. Someone flicked a match and lit the candles nearest them. "Stupid little girl," the person whispered, and as the person turned around, Thalia realized that it was no one but her mother.

"Mom!" A sweet relief washed over her. It was alright; her mother was fine. But instead of being greeted with a hug or a kiss on the cheek or even with some acknowledgment, Thalia's mother swore under her breath as she carefully stepped over the broken glass. Her eyes were blood red and her face looked very pale. She tripped on her way to her bedroom and almost ran straight into the door. She was drunk.

Her mother had left her worried and afraid and alone all to come back without an explanation or apology or excuse, simply just wasted.

And that was when something, something inside Thalia, crumbled down. One last shred of hope, one last piece of respect, one last speck of love and longing towards her mother was suddenly gone.

And as the week went by and her mother never uttered a word about her strange dissapearance and started coming home very late again, eyes blood red, dizzy, and sometimes with some unknown man, Thalia finally decided it was over. She was done.

The days of wishing for a mother who would one day turn into her fairy godmother were over. The days of hoping for a better life, dreaming that it would all end up okay were over. She was done waiting around for her mom who had always let her down and torn away every last shred of hope from her.

This time, she would be the one to leave. She walk out on this stupid "family" and start a life all her own. No entanglements. No broken dreams. No petty dreaming.

So one day, Thalia waited until her mother had left the apartment. Then she threw all her clothes into an old navy duffel bag, dumped the coins from her piggy bank and a few bills she'd "borrowed" from her mother's wallet into the bag, and stuffed a plastic grocery bag with muffins, water bottles, apples, and granola bars and tossed it into her duffel as well.

She didn't take anything else from her apartment. Not any one of the few photographs of her and her mother. Not her school yearbook. Not her old beat up soccer ball or all her childhood stuffed animals she'd outgrown. She didn't even look back as she strode out of the apartment building she had reluctantly called home for the past few years. Because those items no longer held a special place in her heart. They were simply cruel reminders of her miserable past, memories etched into her mind which she tried to forget.

And she stepped into the dirty subway and took a seat on the cold, hard plastic chairs, Thalia felt a heavy weight that had been her chest for what seemed like eternity suddenly lift off. She was on her own and somehow, for some reason, that thought delighted her.

She rested her head against the back of her seat as the subway accelerated, jerking here and there. She didn't really have a plan, nor a destination, her goal had been to simply leave and never go back.

Now, she surveyed the subway. It was filled with many diverse people; a punk teenage boy, a young college student, a few tourists, a mother and her noisy baby, business men, a homeless man.

People swayed in and out of the subway, getting off at stops, walking through the swooshing doors, brushing past other people, always, constantly moving forward.

There was only one other person who stayed on the subway the whole time, never exiting at a stop, never even looking up as the automatic voice announced their new destination. It was a young boy, around her age, with shaggy golden hair. He just sat there in the seat across from hers; head slouched over, eyes glancing around bored.

It's nearing the end of the day and the subway is slowly growing emptier. People are no longer hustling inside, they're rushing out.

They were the last two people on the subway. Every once in a while their eyes would meet and she'd suddenly look away, afraid that those bright blue eyes would see right through her.

Suddenly, he stood up. He took a step towards her and as the subway grew in speed, he jostled forward. Catching himself on the long silver pole, he slid into the seat right next to her. Almost automatically, Thalia stiffened.

"You going anywhere specific?"

She could've lied. After all, he was a stranger, some guy she didn't even know, but for some reason she couldn't. So she told him the truth.

"No. Not really."

He nodded as though this made perfect sense. "Me too."

"I'm running away. From home." She suddenly blurted out.

His smile got a bit wider. "So am I. Need a change of scenery." She cracked a small, tight smile, but her electric blue eyes were gleaming, swimming with an almost absent, but present happiness. Finally, someone who understood.

"Why don't we run away together?" She winced slightly; her voice had sounded so hopeful, so eager like a little child's. For a painful minute, he was quiet, and she worried that, like everyone else in her life, he would reject her.

But then he smiled and said the magic words. "Sure, that sounds like a good idea."

The subway screeched to a halt at the last stop of the night. The doors made a whooshing sound as they opened. She stared out of them, wondering what she would find outside these doors and if she would have to face it alone.

"After all, two heads are better than one." He said, smirking. She smiled too and a laugh escaped her lips. Her eyes went wide and her hand flew up to her mouth; she hadn't heard herself laugh in a long time.

He took her duffel bag and threw it over his shoulder and took his own bag in his other hand.

She grabbed a city map and stuffed it into her pocket; who knew when it could come in handy.

They didn't talk as they walked through the filthy tunnels of the subway and they didn't talk as they climbed up the stairs that led to the clean world above. But something squeezed its way through the silence, something slipped into place. An alliance was formed; it was just understood that they were, from now on, a team.

And together they went on, ready to face the world and every adventure it threw their way.

Author's Note: Okay, well, I've had this idea in my head for awhile now. After reading The Last Olympian, I had really wanted to write about Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth as a trio. There was just so much about this group that we didn't get to see a lot of - mainly because it happened before the time the books start off, but still I wanted to know more about their adventures when it was just three of them running around. So finally, after weeks of tweaking with this chapter, it's finally posted!

This specific chapter was a bit angst-y at the beginning and I didn't mean it to be, but since I was writing in Thalia's point of view I guess that's just the way it came out. The rest of the chapters won't be a lot like that, they'll probably be more light-hearted, but profound at the same time.

I'm actually really excited about this story! I can't wait to write about Luke and Thalia running into monsters, meeting Annabeth, and traveling all across America while slowly learning about their Greek gods ancestry.

Thoughts? Comments? Did you like it? Hate it? Let me know! Thanks for reading and please don't forget to review! It would mean a lot to me.

:) dancechick307