A/N The Percy Jackson series and all it's characters belong to Rick Riordan.
Prologue
It was a cold night, the moonlight shimmering dangerously on the deep snow. No animal was to be seen, they all had been scared away and the woods were filled with a deadly silence.
A silence that was soon to be disrupted by the sound of snow crunching under boots, the soft gasps for air of someone who had been running for a while and the growling and hissing of something very large and lethal stalking its prey.
The girl was scampering from tree to tree like a scared mouse, keeping inside the shadows all the time, not once stepping into the moonlight. She appeared to be fifteen years old, even though she had been born more than thirty years ago. Her eyes were of a very strange shade of blue, almost electric, and wide open in terror. Her black hair was sticky with blood and her hands, spotted with freckles were pressed to her breast as if to keep her heart from bursting out of it.
The predator was right behind her, a great hydra with more than ten heads, larger than a truck, spitting acid and fire. It was getting closer and closer, a bit of acid hitting the girl in the back, causing her to stumble to the ground. Thalia barely managed to get to her feet, barely managed to escape the snapping jaws of the monster.
But now she was facing a new problem: The woods were thinning out and keeping inside of the shadows would only slow her down more. She needed to step into the light to be quicker, otherwise she would never get away.
Thalia braced herself, gritted her teeth and stepped out of the shadows, pain embracing her as soon as the moonlight touched her. She tried to ignore it and started running again but she already knew she wouldn't last long. She was exhausted, every breath she took, burned in her lungs, her injuries, a deep gash on her head and the place were the hydra's acid had touched her, were bleeding heavily, making her feel as if her strength was draining out of her. And then there was the pain that tortured her ever since she had stepped into the moonlight. Maybe she was faster this way, but she would be worn out even sooner. Ans what would she do then? Lay down and wait for her death?
It didn't come that far. She had been glancing after her to see where the hydra was, and when she was looking forward again she had to throw herself backwards, otherwise she would have stumbled right of the edge of a cliff. The daughter of Zeus gasped staring horrified down the hundreds of feet high stone wall and the roaring sea at its foot. Even if Lord Poseidon might be generous and not punish his niece for jumping into his domain, there was still the height. It was ridiculous, she knew it was, after all her father was the Lord oft he sky, and she had seen her little brother fly more than once, she would have probably been able to do so too if she weren't so exhausted, maybe she would be even able to do so now, despite her exhaustion. But she was too scared to try.
Instead she turned around and stared at the hydra coming up to her. The monster took his time now, knowing the hunt was over, as if it wanted to give her a chance to come to terms with her oncoming death.
And death it would be for sure, there was nowhere to run now, and her weapons were gone, her bow long taken away from her. Her spear broken during her first contact with that hydra. Even aegis was lost to her, still lying at the banks of that river, where everything had went wrong, where her whole fate had changed. Only a smile hunting knive was left, not enough to fight of a hydra, fort hat you needed stronger weapons with a better operating distance to cut off the heads and fire to seal up the stumps, so that the heads would not multiply.
Thalia remebered another time when she had made a last stand, many years ago on Half Blood Hill, trying to protect those she loved. She remembered the agony when the monsters had started to rip at her, the feeling of dying. But now there was nobody to protect. She was alone, wounded, tired and tortured by the moonlight sliding over her skin like the eyes of a vengeful person, filling every nerve of her body with agony, and she decided to just give up, she should have died on that hill along time ago, now was apparently her time to leave this world for good, what was left for her anyway? All her old friends where middle-aged now, while she still looked a teenager, they had new problems, not demigod related problems, they would not even miss her, would they? The hydra was so close now, that Thalia could feel ist hot, smelly breath on her face, and she was just about to close her eyes, waiting for the feeling of ist many heads ripping her apart, when a cloud slid between her and the moon, and the light could no longer reach her. The pain was suddenly reduced tot he throbbing of her wounds and her head felt much clearer.
"No" she thought, "not this way. I'm not gonna end as food!". She channeled all the little bit of power she still had, reaching out fort he sky, her father's domain, throwing her knive at the hydra, summoning a blast of lightning at it. The blast was not strong enough to kill it, she knew, she was too weak fort hat, but it gave her time. Enough time to turn around, and throw herself, without any second thought, over the edge.
She saw the sea coming closer and closer and knew that she probably should pray to her father to summon some winds to save her from the impact, for water could be as har das cement, when you fell on it from great height, or to Poseidon not to kill her as soon as she reached his domain or to Hades for a kind judgement in the Underworld. But she didn't.
Thalia Grace did not pray as she fell, though the name that she whispered, sounded almost like a prayer on her lips: "Apollo"