MAIN TITLE: The Keeper of Fate
WARNINGS: See first chapter for warnings.
NOTES: Thanks to Neela4232, angel2u, MeganLeBlanc, dreamin'Big and KittyKat for reviewing!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the PJO series. Rick Riordan does.
Chapter 13: Thalia Accidentally Makes My Life Miserable
Life with Thalia at camp is really weird. For the first two weeks, people stop and stare whenever she passes by. As a result, she doesn't feel comfortable talking to anyone except for Annabeth and Grover. Because both the daughter of Athena and the satyr stick to her like glue, she spends time with Percy, too. After a while she seems to decide that he's all right, though I think she finds him a little annoying. It also doesn't take long for Thalia to get used to and grow fond of Chiron, but she hates Mr. D. No surprises there.
What is surprising is that she occasionally spends time with me. I mean, it kind of makes sense, because I was there in the infirmary with her, and unlike most of the campers, I don't gawk at her whenever I see her. And considering the fact that she's still adjusting to everything that's changed in the past seven years, she's actually pretty fun to hang around most of the time.
She almost threw up when she saw the Aphrodite cabin, and when Cheryl came out to introduce herself. Since then Thalia's been helping me (and sometimes Clarisse) play pranks on the redhead every so often. Obviously, this earned my respect. She's an awesome fighter, too. She kicked Jackson's butt in the Arena once after he made the mistake of challenging her to a good-natured one-on-one battle.
The problem is that the closer she gets to me, the more she talks about Luke. At first I didn't understand it. I mean, why would she talk to me about Luke? She's only known me for two weeks! So naturally, I assumed that Annabeth or Grover had told her about my relationship with Luke. And naturally, my assumption was wrong.
She didn't know. She still doesn't know. She talks to me about him because she thinks I have no connection to him. Thalia realizes that Grover, Chiron, Percy, and especially Annabeth aren't going to give her what she wants: the truth.
Grover and Chiron would be too worried about hurting her, so they would keep things from her. Annabeth would have the same problem, but even if the younger girl ignored the need to protect Thalia, she'd be hurting herself; the last thing she would want is to relive all the pain Luke caused her. On top of that, Annabeth's view of things is distorted. She thinks that Luke can be saved. She believes that he's still a hero deep down.
Then there's Percy. Now, in case I haven't already told you and you haven't already guessed, Percy really, really hates Luke. This is so obvious that even Thalia, who has only heard him mention Luke about two times, can see it. So while Thalia doesn't want the story of Luke's betrayal told by someone who is blinded by love (Annabeth) she also doesn't want the story told by someone who is blinded by hatred (Percy).
Unfortunately for me, Thalia doesn't realize that I have all of these problems. When I talk to her about Luke, I worry that I'm going to say something that will seriously hurt her–or myself. I used to love Luke–and maybe I still do; I don't really know–but I definitely hate what he's done, and in a way, his actions have made me hate him.
But Thalia thinks that Luke was just another camper to me. She thinks that I didn't take his betrayal personally. She thinks that my opinion of him is objective. And I just can't bring myself to tell her that she's got it all wrong.
So I pretend. I pretend that I never really cared about him, and that her questions don't bother me. I tell her the truth about how he's almost killed Percy about five times, and that though Luke did poison her tree, he did want to use the Golden Fleece to bring her back to life.
Which makes her feel a lot better, while at the same time making me feel a lot worse. He went to such lengths to bring her back, and somehow I doubt he would do that for me. Yeah, that's right. As stupid as it is, I'm still jealous of Thalia. Or maybe it's more appropriate to say that I'm once again jealous of her. Because I really did get over the jealousy when I started dating Luke. It was only after he broke my heart that it came back.
And it's not even about whether he's in love with her or not anymore–or at least not completely. I'm jealous of Annabeth now, too, and despite her crush on Luke, he only ever saw her as a little sister. Heck, I'm even jealous of Grover now, simply because he knew Luke before he went on his quest.
That doesn't make any sense, does it? Maybe I should explain it better. You see, Annabeth and Thalia and Grover knew Luke long before he ever joined Kronos. They knew the real him, not just the front he put up to fool everyone into thinking he was the good guy. They can trust their memories of him. Even after everything he's done to her, Annabeth has never doubted the fact that he genuinely cared about her. And she never will.
But I never had any of that. By the time I met him, he was already bitter about failing his quest. He was already being tortured with nightmares and tempted by the opportunity for revenge. He was already being swayed to Kronos' side.
So I'll always be wondering if he was only getting close to me so that when the time came, he could persuade me to join Kronos. I'll always be wondering if I ever really knew him, if he ever really loved me. I'll always have those doubts.
There's nothing I can really do about it, though. So I'll ignore all of this, until it becomes too much. I can't keep all of this in forever. Eventually, I'll reach my limit, and everything I've been bottling up inside will explode.
"You guys ready for this?" Gareth questions.
Clarisse scoffs. "Are you kidding me, Vires? I was born ready for this. This is our chance to get back at Jackson for that one game last summer." She turns to her teammates and lifts her spear. "For Ares!"
"FOR ARES!" her siblings shout back.
I roll my eyes. Gods, we are so doomed. Why is it that we never have the Athena cabin on our side? Seriously, those geeks kick ass. AND they've got the Apollo kids on their side, so we're going to be showered with arrows pretty quickly. Not to mention they have Pollux, Castor, Percy, and Thalia.
On the other, they're also stuck with the children of Aphrodite, who usually never participate in capture the flag. I mean, Silena does about half of the time, and Cheryl is this time–just because I'm on the opposite team–but unless the two girls manage to rally the rest of their cabin, they're not going to be much help. Which is a problem for the red team, because with most of the Aphrodite cabin sitting out for the entire game, we have at least fifteen more campers than they do.
The team with the Hermes cabin almost always has more campers. I mean, there are more than twenty of them–heck, there are almost thirty. To be perfectly honest, if I didn't know that a lot of the kids in cabin eleven were undetermined or children of minor gods, I would be disgusted with Hermes. I don't think even a god could knock up that many women in the space of a decade, give or take a few years.
Anyways, the point is that we have the Hermes cabin on our side, which brings our numbers up to almost fifty. Well, technically, we–and by we I mean Demeter, Ares, and Hephaestus–are on their side. The blue team's silver banner bears the messenger god's symbol: a caduceus. The Hermes kids are the ones who organized the alliance. I don't know what the other cabins were promised, but I do know that my brothers and I are Pegasus-free for the next three weeks.
Surprisingly, the red team is led by Mr. D's twins. Castor got the flag to his side last time, so it turned royal purple with a thyrsus on it. A thyrsus is basically a staff wrapped in grapevines and ivy with a pinecone on top. Apparently Dionysus and his followers (gods, that's a scary thought; Dionysus with followers) carried these staffs around all the time.
I watch the others go over the plan, determined to make sure Castor and Pollux don't end up on a winning streak.
"Now remember, Connor, you're going to take half of all four cabins and attack the red team head on," Katie reminds the mischievous son of Hermes.
"Right." He nods enthusiastically. "I got it. I can remember that."
"You better," she mutters under her breath. She watches carefully as he gathers his troops and relays them the plan.
"But that's just a ruse, right?" Travis chimes in. "They'll be so focused on the frontal assault that they won't even notice me swoop in from the side until I've spirited their flag away!"
I roll my eyes again. "I think you mean they won't notice you and Gareth and I swoop in."
He merely shrugs his shoulders dismissively and says, "Right, I forgot about you two. I guess you'll be of some help."
Gardner ignores us. "Now, Sherman and I will be guarding our flag. Meanwhile, the remainder of the team will be patrolling. And not just the border, okay? You guys have to patrol as much of our side of this forest as you can. And make sure you always have someone with you."
"Aye aye, Captain!" Jake salutes her. Katie's lips press together like she's fighting a smile.
"Hey, wait a second," Sherman protests. "How come I have to guard the flag? That's such a boring job!"
"To put it simply," Beckendorf says, "we don't really trust you with anything else."
Sherman grumbles under his breath about how unfair that is, but he shuts up pretty quickly when I point out that Isabel would be playing too if she weren't in a wheelchair.
Chiron will be blowing the conch horn in a few minutes, so everyone breaks into their groups to get individual assignments and figure out who is stationed where. Katie wanders from group to group, making sure that everyone knows what they're doing. You know, I was kind of surprised when the daughter of Demeter took the leadership role, but now I think it suits her. She's great at ordering people around. I mean, she shouldn't be leader all the time, but considering the choice is between her and the Stoll brothers, I'm glad she's in charge.
"You know," Travis' voice breaks through my internal musings. "I'm kind of surprised that Katie picked you two to go after the flag."
"And why is that, exactly?" I glare at him, but apparently this has no effect on him.
"I was just wondering, you know," he answers, unabashed. "Because you two aren't exactly master thieves."
"And you are?" Gareth asks skeptically.
"Of course I am!" he fakes a highly insulted expression.
"Well, your reputation certainly doesn't precede you," I tell him.
"Now you're just lying," he protests. "New campers are always warned about my brother and me on the very first day."
"Yeah, they're warned about what weirdoes you two are."
I don't really mean it, and Travis knows that. He stills punches me in the shoulder, though. Not hard enough to leave a bruise, but hard enough that it hurts a little.
"Travis!" Katie's horrified gasp comes from behind us. We spin around and find that the expression on her face matches her tone of voice. "How could you do that to Dess?"
"It's all right, Katie, it was a really light punch," I assure her.
"That doesn't matter! It's not right to hit people!" Gardner insists.
Travis rolls his eyes. "Katie, you hit people all the time. And not just during capture the flag or combat practice, either. Whenever Connor and I say something stupid, you almost always slap us across the face."
"Yeah, but this is different, Dess is a–"
"A girl?" Travis interrupts her. "Is that what you were going to say? Because you know, Katie, that's really sexist of you."
He's just teasing, but she takes the accusation seriously. "What do you mean, sexist? How is it sexist to say that it's wrong to hit a girl?"
The joking smile disappears. "Are you kidding me?" he asks incredulously. "Of course it's sexist! Towards boys and girls. Girls are allowed to hit boys, but boys aren't allowed to hit girls? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's a double standard. You're basically saying that boys deserve to be hit for no reason other than that they're boys. And on the flipside, you're implying that girls aren't tough enough to take a punch or two from a guy."
Gareth and I exchange startled glances. Katie blinks, stunned. That was probably the most meaningful thing Travis has ever said.
Katie blinks again and then says slowly, "Travis, I… You–you're right."
"Do you have to sound so surprised?"
The shock drains away, but Katie doesn't get a chance to respond. The sound of the conch shell being blown in the distance pierces the evening air, and immediately the other groups run off to do their respective jobs.
"You think I have a shot with her now?" Travis asks hopefully, his eyes glued to Katie's retreating figure.
His question doesn't surprise me that much. I mean, he pranks her more than all the other campers combined. He's like a little boy on the playground that throws pebbles at pretty girls. I watch as Katie rejoins her group, noting the thoughtful look on her face. She's really thinking over what he said.
"Maybe," I answer. "But Travis, she's known you for years; one conversation isn't going to completely change her opinion of you."
"Then I'll keep working on it." The determination on his face makes me smile. Poor boy's got it bad.
"All right, lover boy, but let's focus on the game for now, okay?" I ask, mostly because Gareth is glaring at us impatiently.
"Sure thing." Travis turns to my half-brother and says, "Sorry, got a little distracted."
Gareth grunts, which Travis and I take to mean "apology accepted". Then Gareth grins. "So I ask again: are you guys ready for this?"
"Heck yeah!" says Travis.
"Do you even need to ask?" is my response.
We wander away from our flag, determined to get the enemy's banner at all costs.
"You said your name was Althea, right?"
"Y–yes."
"Do you know if your mother knew anything about Greek mythology?"
"I g–guess. I–I–I mean, my mother did take a–an introductory course on it… W–why?"
"It's just that Althea is the English form of the Greek name Althaea, like with an 'a' before the 'ea'. So if your mother purposely chose that name because it was Greek, then it could give us a clue to who your father was."
"R–really?"
"Yeah. According to Greek mythology, Althaea was–"
Standing several feet away from the two conversing demigods, Annabeth and I groan.
I shake my head. "There he goes again."
"And I tried so hard to keep him away from her. I thought I could save her," Annabeth sighs, looking both defeated and frustrated at the same time.
I pat her shoulder. "You did the best you could. I guess there's just no stopping him."
"I guess you're right. My gods, that's something I never thought I would say…" I glare at her but she ignores me, instead choosing to continue: "Maybe we should just let him do his thing for now, let him get it out of his system."
"Yeah, I don't think there's anything else we can do at this point. It's too late for her. But let's watch, just in case."
"Yeah, and if she starts looking like she's been scarred for life, then we'll just have to rescue her." Annabeth face is set, determined.
"Agreed," I say, and then turn my attention back to Luke and the little girl who keeps glancing around for some sort of escape.
"–so you see, you might be a child of Ares because it's rumoured that Althaea was his granddaughter. But on the other hand, there were a lot of nymphs with the name Althaea–there still are, in fact–and nymphs are typically associated with Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan, but of course you can't possibly be a child of Pan because he went missing so long ago. So you might be my sibling, or you might be Mr. D's kid–"
Okay, that's going too far. We let him have his fun, but telling a little girl that she might be a child of our grumpy camp director? No. Just no.
Annabeth and I stare each other down. One of us has to rescue that terrified ten year old.
I blink.
"Hah! I win!" she exclaims triumphantly.
"It was your idea to interfere in the first place," I argue.
"You agreed to it," she shoots back.
"Rock-paper-scissors?" I suggest.
"…Sure, why not?"
"Rock, paper, scissors. Rock, paper, scissors," I chant, but both times we tie. "Rock, paper, scissors–damn."
"Have fun." Annabeth smiles, uncurling her fist from rock formation. I knew I shouldn't have gone with scissors.
I sigh and trudge across the pavilion to table eleven.
"–though of course it's possible you're a daughter of Apollo, because 'Althaea' is Greek for 'healing', and Apollo is the god of medicine–ow!"
I withdraw my hand from his arm as Luke turns to glare at me.
"What was that for?" he demands, rubbing his thumb over the part of his skin that I pinched.
"Someone had to get you to shut up. You're traumatizing the poor girl."
"Don't be ridiculous, I was just explaining–" he begins heatedly, but I interrupt him.
"Sorry, he has problems," I tell the bewildered girl, who truthfully looks very relieved when I grab Luke's elbow and drag him away.
I tow Luke out of the mess hall, nodding at Annabeth when I pass her. When we're a safe distance away from the dining area, I release him.
"Luke," I say, and my voice is full of exasperation. "Do you have to do that to every new kid?"
"I was trying to help her find out who her godly parent is," he protests.
"I realize that, but didn't you realize how uncomfortable you were making her? I know you were just trying to help, but still. That is such a weird habit. How would you like it if someone spewed out an encyclopedia's worth of info on Greek mythology the second you introduced yourself? I mean, I know I make people uncomfortable a lot, and I know I babble on about stuff that nobody cares about, and I know that I make things really difficult most of the time but– What? Why are you looking at me like that?" I demand.
For a second he just stares at me. I tap my foot impatiently.
"I love you," he says simply, and then he starts walking again, like he hasn't just turned my whole world upside down.
"I–wait, what did you say?" I ask, because he's never said that to me before.
He stops walking and turns to look at me. "I love you," he repeats. "It's only three words, Dess, and I wasn't whispering or anything. You sure your hearing isn't going?"
My temper flares. "My hearing is perfectly fine, thank you very much. And I think I'm entitled to ask you to repeat yourself."
"Are you?" he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
"Yes, I am! You don't just blurt stuff like that out! You can't just spring it on people unexpectedly, you have to–" I stop short.
"I have to what?" He grins lazily. "Was I supposed to serenade you with a love song that I wrote? Or was I supposed to have someone write it in the sky? Or was I supposed to take you out to dinner at some fancy restaurant that uses candles for lighting and then write it on your plate with ketchup?"
I can feel my face heating up. "That's not what I meant and you know it. You can be such an asshole sometimes, Luke."
"So can you, and yet I somehow love you anyways." He grins again and tugs on a lock of my hair. His fingers trail down my arm, stopping to play with the golden bracelet that is always on my wrist now.
"Whatever, I'm going to the Arena to practice." I roll my eyes, but he catches my arm as I stomp past.
"Hang on a second," he says indignantly. "Aren't you going to give me an answer?"
"Answer? You didn't ask me a question," I retort.
Looking as exasperated as I did not five minutes ago, he points out, "I just told you that I loved you. You're generally supposed to give some sort of response to that."
"Oh, well just give me a second to compose a romantic poem and write it out on the ground in ketchup," I say, bitingly sarcastic. I try to jerk my arm free from his grip. My attempt is unsuccessful, so I snap, "Fine, whatever, I love you too."
Undeterred by my less-than-affectionate tone, he asks, "Yeah?"
It suddenly occurs to me that he sounds just like I did a couple of weeks ago on my birthday, when I was admitting that I was worried that he liked another girl. A little uncertain. More than a little vulnerable. He's putting himself out there and I'm treating it like a joke.
I stop struggling against his grip. "Yeah," I answer softly, and his entire face lights up. And then I add, "I love you."
Because I mean it, just like he did.
"Crap, someone's coming, let's hide behind that tree!"
I follow Travis' command, jerking myself completely out of the memory I was lost in. We're about ten minutes into the game, and already my attention span is waning. As I crouch behind my brother who is crouching behind a tall red maple, I think about how sure I was last that Luke was telling the truth. "I love you," he'd said, and I had believed him.
It's strange, but the more I fell in love with him, the less I thought about him. I thought about him all the time when I was just infatuated with him, because when you're infatuated with someone you're constantly plagued with insecurities. Those insecurities faded over time. I still had doubts occasionally–it was impossible not to–but for the most part I just felt happy when I was with him, not anxious. Usually when I really, truly love someone, I'm more confident that I can trust them.
So the fact that I'm always questioning Luke's motives…maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it means I'm getting over him. I think about him almost all the time now. It's like my entire world revolves around him; everything relates back to him. I dislike Jackson because of Luke. I'm uncomfortable around Thalia because of him. I was jealous of Thalia, but then I got over it. Now that jealously is back, and I can't help but hope that it's because my feelings for him are reverting back to infatuation. Maybe I'm falling out of love with him.
Feeling slightly cheered by this possibility, I shift my attention to what's important: winning the game. I let out a sigh of relief when the sound of footsteps finally fades. I stand up when I get Travis' signal and we continue on in search of the enemy flag. Seriously, how hard can it possibly be to find a giant purple banner? Just as I think this, Gareth hisses, "Look!" and points to the right. There it is, in all its glory. The enemy flag. Only there's a problem. Someone's guarding it–and not just anyone. No, it has to be Thalia.
Author's Note: Luke was probably kind of OOC in the flashback. I made him a little obsessed with the meaning of names and whether or not they have Greek origins. It's not like the books say anything about his quirks (not including all of the quirks that involve him being a traitorous, evil insert-swear-word-that-means-jerk here) so I obviously made it up.
Hope you liked this chapter. Reviews are appreciated.