Hey, did anyone reread the story? I made some vital changes to it. If you're unsure, please reread.

Oh, in response to belated eloquence's review- I'm sorry about the underscores, if they are annoying you, but for some reason, if I use the dash to abruptly end the sentence, the speech mark that would close the sentence is switched back to '66' mode, instead of '99'. So I use underscores instead. :)

Feel free to start reading any time soon :D

Chapter 5:

Nicknames and New Sights

Annabeth woke up gasping. She must have blacked out from smoke inhalation.

She was in the room below the attic- the one with the dinner table and the window.

Even with a cool breeze blowing through the room, the smoke was still thick. Annabeth sat up, feeling slightly woozy. Where was Thalia?

All she could see were curling tendrils of smog, drifting through the window. Some insignificant part of her mind wondered how the smoke already in the room could get out if there was only one window and the breeze was drifting through that window. Eventually, all the oxygen would be sucked out and she would still be trapped, breathing in toxic smoke fumes.

Annabeth couldn't move very far before she collapsed, retching, her head feeling as if it would explode.

"Thalia!" she called, but her voice was just a dry whisper. Her throat felt like sand paper. "Thalia!" she tried again, to no avail. Her voice was temporarily disabled.

Annabeth lay on the floor, paralysed, mute. Tears started to run down her face.

Her finger twitched. Her breathing hitched. And she blacked out again.

Thalia was free for the first time in six years. She could have run, and finally been free of her terrible prison. But she couldn't leave Annabeth. Thalia wasn't stupid- she knew that with only one window in the tower, the air wouldn't circulate properly. The smoke, being the denser air- based chemical instead of oxygen, would slowly fill the room as the oxygen was carried out on the breeze.

Annabeth would die a slow, painful death unless Thalia could get a rescue team together.

So, how had she gotten out of the tower? That morning, she hadn't got to finish her sentence to Annabeth, about the object that could be used for suicide. Well, a rope could be used, couldn't it? To strangle herself?

Thalia was sure it had been Jason, her brother, who she knew would have signed up for the Royal Guard this year, as he was of age, fifteen years old. He would have started training when he was eleven. Jason was the one who had finally thought enough was enough and sneaked the rope into his sister's weekly food rations so that she and her Lady could escape.

Thalia couldn't believe how much of Jason's life she had missed. Years. He would have grown up in the palace, being a long- distance relative of King Zeus. A hundredth- something cousin to Prince Heracles, known as Hercules in Othrys.

Thalia pushed herself to run faster, even though her underused muscles were screaming, her lungs protesting violently against the exercise. Being locked up in a tower for six years didn't really help her to maintain her fitness levels.

A couple of kilometres down the track, and Thalia couldn't go on. She stopped for a rest, wind whistling up and down her dry trachea, her legs trembling, face white with strain and clothes drenched with sweat.

If the group of travelling peasants hadn't found her collapsed in the middle of the road, about to get trampled by two very annoyed equestrians, Thalia probably would have fallen asleep, her sore throat aching for a cool drink of water. A cool drop of liquid plopped onto her cheek. Thalia's tongue snaked out and licked it up. It had a kind of- was that?

It tasted like the smell of dog breath.

As it was, Thalia opened her eyes only when she heard yelling and snorts coming from above her. Standing over her, foaming at the mouth, was a chestnut mare with a homemade rope harness around her neck. She immediately began spitting and slobbering and clawing at her mouth to get rid of the horrid taste of horse drool. She shuddered at the thought.

Thalia sat up, her head throbbing. A plump woman with a tattered midnight blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders was reaching out hand to help Thalia up. The woman was saying something.

A young man, perhaps Thalia's age, was behind her, picking her up by the armpits. Thalia caught an unpleasant whiff of farm animal.

She choked on her air, the horrible smell bringing her back to reality. "Miss? Miss! Are we all there?" the young man was saying urgently. He tapped her lightly on the face, then the forehead.

Thalia slapped his hand away. "I'm fine!" she snapped, then erupted into a fit of intense coughing. She fell to her knees. The woman put her hand on Thalia's back and patted her firmly. Thalia's coughing ceased. She realised that her cheek was planted firmly on the dirt road.

"Where am I?" she groaned, pushing herself up off the ground. Her voice was so croaky that it broke on every word.

The woman handed her a water canteen. "You are in King Zeus' land. Olympus. Are you lost, young one?"

The woman spoke funny, Thalia realised. She had a funny dialogue- somewhere between twangy and nasal, though the woman's voice was so deep it could have been reverberating from the bowels of the earth.

Or perhaps it was Thalia's accent that was funny- she hadn't compared her own voice to another human being's beside Annabeth's in six years.

Thalia shook her head in astonishment. Twenty four hours ago, she had not thought that this is how she would be spending her day.

The dumbfounded girl laughed humourlessly, her voice shaky as she said, "Lost? No more than the next person, I guess. Seriously, where am I?"
The woman murmured something under her breath, staring at Thalia, sizing her up.

"Are you, by any chance, a rogue spy, sent to watch our actions like a fly on the wall? Sent by the scoundrel King Kronos?"

Thalia huffed. "I don't look that scruffy, do I? I had a bath the other day."

The young man snorted quietly. Thalia looked at him quizzically, but he shook his head dismissively.

"My name is Rhoda Fressiere and this is my son Koren. We are nomads. Travel where we please, ruled by no one. Who is your master, child?"

"Child? I'm no younger than your son here."

"My name is Koren." Koren said, with a hint of whining in his voice. Thalia decided that she didn't like him. He seemed too- what was the word? Ungrateful? Snobbish? No, more like he was- heedless of his surroundings. Unaware of anyone but himself.

"Do you need a ride, young one?" Rhoda offered apprehensively. "We'd be happy to escort you."

Thalia looked down. Then back up, a flush colouring her cheeks. She didn't like asking things of strangers, but… "Yes, please. But only on one condition."

Rhoda raised a bushy eyebrow.

"I work for it." It seemed like a noble response, but Rhoda and Koren burst into peals of laughter, like it was the most ridiculous reply they had ever heard.

"What?" Thalia asked defensively.

"Never decline a free ride, child. You take what's offered with glee."

Rhoda grabbed Thalia's arm and pulled her into the cart. The trio set off.

"Where to, petal?" Rhoda asked, while Koren was manning the reigns.

Thalia pouted. "Don't call me petal."

"Where do you wish to be carted, Driftwey, if you prefer?" Koren asked in a mock exasperation tone.

"Driftwey? That's just lame."

"Oh, gods, mother. She's infuriating. Can we just drop her in the sewer ditch and be done with a bundle of trouble?"

"Shut up and watch the road, Pebble," Rhoda ordered her son. Thalia stifled a laugh.

Rhoda turned to Thalia. "Tell us where you want to be dropped off. We will happily apply." There was a not- so- subtle grunt from Koren.

"The closest town. I don't care. Anywhere where there is civilisation."

"You heard the lady, Koren. To Μαρμάρινου Αγάλματος της γης!" Rhoda said something incomprehensive to Thalia's ears.

"I'm not a lady, alright? Just a simple peasant. And, excuse me?" she said.

"It is our native language for the name of this town. Only during King Zeus's parents' reign did we begin to speak this new, complicated language. It is against Royal Law to speak the old tongue. In your native tongue, it would be called Jupiter's Land."

"Jupiter…" Thalia murmured. "Jupiter is one of King Zeus's many names…"

"That's right, Pixie."

"If I have to say, "I'm not a_" One more time, I will strangle you with the mare's harness."

Rhoda laughed. "Almost there, honey. Ready the whip, Kory. I'd hang on tight, sweet."

Thalia didn't even bother to reply with a smart ass comment.

Koren brought his stick down hard on the mare's rump. The cart shot forward, bouncing over potholes and dirt mounds so fast that Thalia was amazed that a wheel didn't snap off.

Thalia could feel her nausea returning. This wild ride wasn't going to mix well with her empty stomach, she knew.

The cart stopped abruptly at a set of double wooden gates just in time for Thalia to puke up her non- existent breakfast.

The guard at the gate looked at her with disgust.

She stepped off the cart, stumbling, her head woozy and her vision swimming. "Bit too much to drink, miss?" the guard asked in the same strange accent as Rhoda and Koren.

"No!" Thalia gasped, collapsing to her knees and holding her throbbing head. "Rough ride!"

Leaving Koren at the reigns of the wagon, Rhoda quickly came to Thalia's aid, standing her up, steadying her against a tree.

Rhoda turned to the guard and laughed merrily. "Newbie." The guard nodded and cracked a smile. He walked forward and shook Rhoda's hand in a gesture that seemed formal, polite, yet friendly at the same time.

Thalia watched in amazement as Rhoda saluted the guard, waved to her, shouted, "Good luck, dearie!" And drove away at the mad speed that they had set before.

Thalia hugged the tree, glad for its steadfast stillness, solidity. The guard appraised her. Thalia gulped- he was a big, burly man with biceps rippling with muscle. He held a spear and on his back was a bow and full quiver of quail- feathered arrows. "What is your name, miss?"

Thalia let go of the tree carefully, not sure whether she was able to stand upright independently yet. Relief washed over her when she didn't suddenly topple over. "Thalia Grace. I have come to receive aid for a friend of mine who is trapped in a building that is ablaze."

The man carefully held out his hand. She let their hands touch and he grasped hers with a firm grip that seemed so gentle, yet so like iron. Thalia immediately knew that this man could snap her neck so easily, slight and slender as she was.

They shook hands, just as the man had with Rhida and silently studied each other. Finally the man said, "You'd better come in. We have to discuss this with the troops."

The man led her inside the gates. He turned to her. "Oh, I forgot. My name is Beckendorf."

I think you know what the next chapter is going to be! Looking forward to it! Oh, by the way, that greek word, in English characters, would be: Marmarinou Agalmatos Tes Ges. Just saying.

Also, some people have been saying that my chapters are repeating themselves, or something. I can't see anything wrong, so I can't fix it. Sorry if it's annoying you.

So, yeah. Please check out my other stories and maybe leave a review. Maybe. Hopefully. You get the picture.

Bananas in Pyjamas out :P