As she peered over the sheer cliff's edge, Thalia couldn't help but wonder for the briefest of moments. Did the world really need saving? Maybe she could just go back to Camp and be a tree again. That was easy. She didn't have to deal with heights, or monsters, or bad shoulders,. Or weird metal spiders, or cute, shirtless boys, or…

This train of thought was going nowhere. Unfortunately, neither was Percy. He stood frozen at the start of the monkey bars, holding the metal spider's leash as its tiny feet skittered uselessly on the circular steel of the ladder frame. He looked almost sick, and Thalia could understand that. The two of them had just plummeted god knows how far into a peat bog and nearly drowned, after all, only saved by a rather strange river god - that probably wasn't going to happen again. The Labyrinth was not a friendly place.

The pit in her stomach got just a little bit bigger when Thalia stepped up next to Percy, and she couldn't hold back a gasp when she saw the yawning abyss below the monkey bars. That seemed to break Percy out of his daze, but only just barely.

"So, uh," Percy said. "How is this going to work?"

Thalia shrugged, then immediately regretted it - a lancing pain shot from her shoulder down her spine, strong enough to send her off balance and forwards, nearly slipping off the slick edge of the brick floor. Percy's hand shot out to grab her around the waist, but it was the same hand he was holding the spider's leash with.

Suddenly able to find purchase on the metal ladder, the automata shot off down its rungs, leaping each gap between rungs with nimble hops. Thalia's midriff burned, and not from the heat - but they didn't have time for that. "Fuck it, let's go!" She barked. Then, before she could rethink it, she grabbed Percy's hands and dragged him onto the ladder. Carefully staying on the frame rather than the rungs, the pair moved as quickly as they were able, and Thalia promised herself she'd take the time to panic about the heights later. Maybe when she took the time to digest her emotions.

Yeah, right.

As they shuffled unsteadily forwards, the air around them grew steadily more uncomfortable in both temperature and pressure. If it got much hotter, Thalia didn't know if she could take it. The ladder beneath them was steel framed and she could feel its heat through her feet. Ahead the blackness swallowed the ladder again, and behind them the brick walls they'd left behind had long since faded away. The world now was simply heat, a single ladder which quivered with each step they took, and the faint skittering of the devilish little spider they were chasing.

It wasn't a pleasant existence.

Around them in the stifling heat was precisely nothing. The air was a red so deep it was nearly black, reminiscent of dried, crusted blood, and it darkened below them to near-complete darkness. Time and space were already uncertain things in the Labyrinth, but now they truly lost all meaning. They might have been going for five minutes or five months, twenty feet or ten miles - there was no way to tell. Her thighs and calves ached with the strain of maintaining her balance on her toes only, her shoulder felt like she was being gouged with a hot fire poker, and she was sweating like a stuck pig. To top it all off, she and Percy hadn't said a word since they started on the path. What an awful place.

As they traveled, the ladder began to meander from its originally ramrod-straight path. First it twisted moderately right, and then began a tight, descending spiral to the left. Even now, the Labyrinth was trying to fuck with them, it seemed - occasionally throwing in a creaking rung or a gap in the framing, the ladder sometimes rolling around its own center or twisting up into tiny loops that they had to clamber over precariously. Thalia tried her best not to think about how the ladder was staying suspended considering there were no supports whatsoever along any point of its length. After all, the guy she was walking with had magically exploded the head of a guy with three chests. A floating bit of steel wasn't the weirdest thing ever.

Eventually, though, the world's lamest, most uncomfortable roller coaster decided enough was enough and deposited the pair right in front of a massive steel door, inset into two massive carved stone blocks. And at the foot of the door, the little metal spider, relentlessly ramming its head into the base of the door.

Unfortunately, before they could reach the doorway, there was one final obstacle from the hellish maze they found themselves in. Between Thalia and the ledge beneath the door was a ten-foot gap in the ladder they'd been walking along. And beneath that gap, somehow scarier than the inky blackness that had surrounded them for most of the walk, was a frothing sea churning on a pile of discarded metal contraptions. She caught sight of a statue cast in bronze, a warrior standing tall, though long since splintered by the strange sea around it. Thalia's mind flashed back immediately to watching Percy disappear under the foot of a much larger version of the warrior, and she stopped abruptly just feet away from the precipice.

Behind her, Percy came to a stop only barely, nearly bumping into her back. Only then did he notice the gap before them.

"Well, shit," he grumbled. "At least we didn't lose the little spider-thing, I guess."

"I mean, sure," Thalia said. "But what are we going to do about the big fuckin hole in the ladder?"

Percy thought for a second. Then, in a moment of decisiveness, he shrugged off his backpack and, leaning out to make it past Thalia, lobbed the backpack clear across the gap. It cleared the gap easily despite its weight and slammed against the door frame, coming to a rest by the still incessantly-headbanging spider. Percy seemed satisfied.

The shirtless demigod turned back to face her, and Thalia instantly understood what he was thinking. "Oh, no you don't," she said. "You are not throwing me anywhere. It's just not happening." Percy just stared expectantly, waiting for her to come up with anything better. In her moment of need, something hit her quickly. "We jump. You jump first. That way when I jump, you can catch me - I don't think I'm gonna be able to catch myself with this shoulder." She couldn't suppress a shiver at the thought of pulling herself up a slick granite cliff face with one arm, soaked by sea spray, assuming she even made it across the gap. "Or, even better - can you control that water at all?"

Percy shook his head, but stuck his arm out experimentally. "I can't feel anything," he said, "But I'll try." The water continued to froth and surge, but none rose to Percy's command. "Maybe it's, like, Labyrinth water? Or the Labyrinth is fighting my water powers too. Fuck, I hate this place."

Thalia nodded.

Then, ever so slowly, the water began to rise, inch by inch climbing up the granite wall as the spray and froth deposited itself ever higher. The churning of the water grew gradually stronger, waves peaking higher and higher, slowly pulling more and more water into themselves and rising higher towards the demigods far above. Thalia watched with only the tiniest, slightest amount of jealousy as the water climbed up until it formed a solid pathway across the gap.

"Hurry… up," Percy gasped in front of her. "Not… easy."

She rushed across the water bridge and did her best to ignore the sounds of it dropping away behind her or the certain death the plunge would represent. Fortunately, she managed to make it across onto the door ledge, just as Percy swore and dropped his hands, the rest of the water bridge falling as he ran out of steam. It was a photo finish for the ages, and as she skidded to a stop across the small ledge she ended up ramming her still-damaged shoulder against the granite wall, but she was across.

Percy looked just about dead on his feet as he stood on the ladder, gasping for breath. Sweat poured off his forehead and his legs were shaking. Worse still, the ladder was not exactly a great place to run - the frame and rungs were rounded and barely an inch wide, and they'd had a hell of a time even walking on it. Worse still, she wasn't certain she could use her powers to help at all, nevermind as much as Percy had helped her - the Labyrinth was still sapping her powers, and being underground was already an unnatural position for a daughter of the sky.

Percy backed up to give himself some run up before he bent over at the waist and placed his hands on his knees to support himself as he prepared himself for the leap. Next to Thalia, the spider's head was beginning to dent itself inwards from hitting itself on the door so repeatedly and strongly - and then the door swung open silently, and the spider's forward momentum of another head-bang launched it through the gap with a shrill screech just as Percy began to run towards the gap.

"What are you doing, boy?" Asked a deep, gruff voice. "You'll get yourself killed." A giant of a man stepped through the door onto the ledge. Or rather, he hobbled. His right leg was in a strange contraption of Celestial Bronze for support, which intricately laced itself around the limb with a vast collection of levers, cables, doo-dads and whatsits to allow the man to stay upright, though his leg still clearly could hardly move. His upper body looked positively oxen and his overalls were covered in grease, oil, and grime. Above that, a beard which was similarly stained, occasionally catching small chunks of itself alight only to extinguish themselves seconds later.

Hephaestus.

"Foolish demigods," the god said, shaking his head. Waving his hand, a dozen of the discarded metal creations below scrambled up towards the ledge and melted themselves down to build a shimmering bronze walkway for Percy to walk across. "You never take the easy way." Then, he turned a hard look onto Thalia. "So what brings father's favorite child and his least-favorite nephew to my garbage chute?"

Percy staggered across the bridge and breathlessly gestured for Thalia to answer. She stammered, but managed to collect herself enough to formulate some sort of answer. "Uh," she managed, "We're hoping you could help us get home… or find Daedalus. We got separated from our friends, but originally we were looking for Daedalus to try and convince him to protect Camp from invasion via the Labyrinth." Thalia paused for a minute - it had been so long since they'd left Camp, since they'd lost the cohesion of the quest, that she was having trouble remembering what they needed to do. "Really, if at all possible, both would be great, Lord Hephaestus."

She hoped that was respectful enough. Hera was the only Olympian she'd interacted with much (besides her brief run-in with Ares and Aphrodite last summer, which didn't help her impression of gods as a whole) and so she wasn't certain how she should address Hephaestus.

"Hmm." Hephaestus frowned, but made no comment on Thalia's propriety or lack thereof. "I am… not the biggest fan, shall we say, of Daedalus. Come in, I might have some food around here somewhere. We must discuss terms." He glanced over at the still doubled-over Percy with vague disdain. "And put a shirt on, for Zeus's sake."

That didn't do much to reassure her, but they had no choice. Thalia and Percy followed the burly blacksmith into his workshop with no small amount of trepidation.

Hephaestus had really comfortable couches.

Sure, there were more important things Thalia should have been paying attention to at that point, but it felt like it had been days since she'd fallen asleep on Percy's shoulder. The couch was just the right balance of firmness and her aching muscles basically gave up the second she allowed them to relax.

As a result, she was fighting to stay awake while Percy did his best to fill in the god of forges (and it didn't help that Percy had put a shirt back on). Even the pain in her shoulder was fading quickly, as though the Labyrinth's influence over her healing was fading. Moonlight trickled into the shop through a window set high into the wall.

The burly god was working over the metal spider that had brought the demigods to him, absently taking it apart and reassembling it into different forms as Percy talked. First it was a dog, then a pickup truck. Helicopters and boats came and went, but when Percy finished, it was back to being a spider. "Most troubling," the god muttered. He waved his hand, and a platter of food appeared, with tall glasses of ice-cold lemonade next to it. Suddenly, Thalia was very much awake. "I am not certain that Daedalus will help you. He is a scoundrel, and worse, a sour old man, scared of his own mortality." He paused and watched Thalia as she scarfed down one sandwich, chased it with half a glass of lemonade, and started on the second - but she was too tired and hungry to care. Besides which, she was technically his half-sister. He wouldn't want to kill her for being rude, probably… hopefully.

"We weren't even certain that he was alive," Percy admitted. "Honestly, getting him to help us was kind of a stretch. We can't really navigate in the maze and just figured we'd work it out as we went, but we haven't."

"Well," Hephaestus said, wordlessly summoning another tray of food for Thalia, "That's another trick, isn't it? Hard to do much of anything here. Even I get lost sometimes. Why, I was looking for an auto parts store to do some work on my Bronco over there, and…" he trailed off. "Anyways. There are a few ways to navigate the maze. That's not really important. What you're asking, to lead you to Daedalus… it's a big ask. Do you know why I'm in this thing?" He gestured to his leg in its brace. "Why do you think I'm not very friendly with the rest of Olympus?"

Percy made to answer, but Thalia cut him off. She knew exactly why. "Hera threw you off the mountaintop. She was unhappy because you were… not up to her standards. So she threw you away and hoped nobody would notice."

The god looked at her appraisingly, and Thalia couldn't tell if it was a good thing or not. Instead of thinking about that further, she went back to her sandwich.

"You are correct, young one. I was thrown from the heavens by my own mother, simply because I was not the perfect son she had wanted." He smiled bitterly. "So, I have a hard time trusting anyone. Particularly family. You can only trust yourself, in the end." He clenched his hands into fists, and inside, the spider gave a pitiful shriek as it died. Molten slag dripped from between the massive fingers, pooling on the floor and sizzling on hard concrete.

Thalia could understand that.

When she'd run away from home, heartbroken by the death of her brother Jason and her mother's listless addiction to anything harder than ibuprofen, the world had not been welcoming. Life was hard enough as a young girl, but a demigod runaway had it orders of magnitude worse, and she'd learned quickly to stay on the move and stay away from just about everyone. It was a lonely way of life, but it was survival - there was no room for anything more than that.

She'd been bouncing around the nation when she'd found Luke. Something had just clicked, then. They were inseparable after that point, even more so after Annabeth had joined them. They'd become the family Thalia never had, and Luke was… maybe something more than that, even. Together their little group went through more life-or-death situations than Thalia could even remember, and pretty quickly she learned that not only could the other two be trusted behind her back, but that she wanted them there, that they'd protect her from everything they could.

And then she'd woken up from a short tree-shaped nap and learned that her best friend and crush was actually a fascist intent on raising a tyrannical Titan from the dead to rule the world.

Which was a shock, to say the least.

For a while, that had broken something in her. She'd clung to Annabeth, but even then, she couldn't quite get herself to trust her oldest and only friend. Everything was so alien and she was drifting through time and space, torn loose from everything that she'd become so comfortable with. Once again, she was forced to face a bleak reality - that she might be alone in the world, that there might be nobody who she could trust to support her.

In part, she supposed, that was why she'd been so insistent that she go on the quest to rescue Annabeth (even if it had been intended to rescue Artemis first and foremost - Thalia only really cared about the daughter of Athena). She simply refused to believe anybody else could be trusted with the life of the only person Thalia had left, the only anchor to her humanity that remained.

And then Percy had carried the sky next to her. Even now, they shared that streak of gray.

She shook herself from her introspection. "So you're saying that this would be… a trade. Because you don't think you can trust us enough to just give it to us straight up?"

"Exactly," the god confirmed. "It's not good to go looking. But if you insist on it, I'll tell you how to get to Daedalus. There will be a price for the information, though. A hefty one."

Percy, as usual, brashly rushed in. "Name it."

The god laughed. "So easy? Just like that?" The laughter was a deep rushing sound, like a forge's bellows stoking its fires. "You don't have a clue what I'm going to ask."

Percy nodded firmly. "Just like that. You've been nice to us so far, and we need Daedalus. Nothing you could ask for would be worse than watching my friends die because I wasn't willing to give it my all."

Hephaestus had no response to that, and there was a pregnant pause. After a minute, he nodded with an air of finality. "Very well. But you two are in no condition to do much of anything now. So rest some, get some sleep, eat your fill. We'll discuss more tomorrow."

He waved his hand again, and Thalia's vision faded to blackness.

As ever, sleep was not an escape from her problems. This time, though, it was useful.

Grover and Tyson were doing their best to sneak around, though neither was particularly well suited to it. Tyson barely fit down the tight hallway they were in, and Grover's hooves clopped against the concrete harshly despite his attempts to be quiet. The unlikely duo were working their way along what looked like a prison walkway. On the main gallery below, a gigantic monster of a woman, her bottom half a dragon-like form that dragged a long tail behind it. Massive black claws dug themselves deep into the concrete with every step.

The woman was at least twenty feet tall, and she could peer over the second-floor balcony - but fortunately, Tyson and Grover were on the third, staying as far from the edge and therefore the beast-woman's vision as possible. Thalia had no such problems, and so she could stare with fascination as the woman's flesh bubbled around her waist where the dragon melded with the woman. Heads and sometimes even torsos would appear from the bubbling, oozing flesh, their faces contorted in rage and pain and whatever limbs emerged with them flailing desperately for an escape that would never come. Her own head was a nest of snakes writhing, tongues flitting, scenting the air.

The woman walked past the duo and rounded a corner, and Tyson nodded to Grover. Silently, the two slumped, allowing themselves a brief relaxation.

And then behind them, a gigantic creature cleared its throat softly, and a dozen hands clutched the bars of the cell behind them. "Who are you? Are you heroes, come to die?"

Tyson whirled and stared in astonishment. "A Hundred-Handed One!" He exclaimed - but in his shock, he forgot the peril he was in. Down the hall, a dozen snakes hissed, and two giant feet came stomping towards them.

The last thing Thalia saw was Grover's terrified face fading into blackness.

From the blackness arrived a new dream, though thankfully somewhat less imperiled than the previous one. If anything, this one was downright nice, a beautiful Mediterranean beach cove with crystalline blue water. White rocks topped with small, hardy bushes formed a natural breakwater and made a small cove.

Ahead of her, just out of the surf, were two wooden lounge chairs, one with a towel set out on it as though someone was about to return. The other was invitingly empty. When she looked down, Thalia was in a rather skimpy black bikini and had a towel wrapped around her waist.

"Ah, Thalia. It's good to see you. You look… amazing."

Her blood froze.

Sitting upright in the lounge chair was a shirtless and smiling Luke. He looked good, she had to admit, muscles shiny and bronzed in the warm sunlight, hair styled just so, but something about it was wrong, like he was a wax model that had been taken from the mold too soon and melted a little bit. He had a beer in one hand and, in the other, a gleaming bronze scythe. The son of Hermes was smiling the deceitful smile she remembered from Mount Othrys - it didn't quite reach his eyes. His raging pink scar twisted awkwardly with the smile, and when he saw Thalia's eyes lock onto that scar, he dropped the smile entirely.

"It's been so long," he tried again.

"Not long enough," Thalia spit out. "You nearly got Annabeth killed. You betrayed her, and me, and tried to get me to destroy Olympus. You tried to manipulate me to do your bidding. Why would I want to see you ever again?"

Luke nodded, and Thalia wanted to smack him. "Of course, this is true," he said. "But… can you blame me? I'm doing the right thing." He took a sip of beer. "The gods have had their chance. They've had their time. They've proven that they're not worthy of ruling, Thalia. What have they done for you, for me, for Annabeth?"

"What have the Titans done for you, Luke?" Thalia asked venomously.

"They have given me power, strength beyond your wildest dreams," Luke answered smugly. "Your little boy toy Percy's magical powers are nothing compared to the powers of Perses - Hecate's father. I can control your dreams. I can control armies. You merely fight in them." As if to prove his point, he waved his hand, and the sea began to churn on the beach. In the distance, hundreds of Greek triremes appeared, rowing the sea into a froth as they approached. "But the Titans promise more than power. They will give us health, recognition, safety. Order. A place for demigods to grow old, to raise families, to be humans. Don't you want that, Thalia? Don't you wish you could be normal, just for a little bit? Be free to do as you wish, not as the gods demand?"

Thalia didn't dignify that with a response, instead choosing to just glare at Luke. If he hoped to lure her by promising the power of Titans and a chance to be oppressed by them instead of neglected by the gods, he'd really underestimated how hard it would be - or drastically overestimated his salesmanship. Although it did sound nice. She could imagine a different life on that beach, in a different time. A small wooden cabin back up the hill, her feet in the surf, a warm hand in hers as she leaned against muscular shoulders and watched a deep red sunset.

Luke grew tired of waiting. "That's not why I'm here," he said finally. "I'm here to show you that whatever you think Percy can give you, he can't." The son of Hermes waved his hand again, and days passed on the beach - and then, one day, Percy showed up. He looked beleaguered, worse for the wear perhaps, staggering through the sand - but Thalia's mouth still went dry at the sight of the demigod clothed only in loose cotton pants.

And then, from behind her, a woman in a sundress walked up to Percy, placing a gentle kiss on his cheek and handing him something with a soft smile. Percy took it gratefully and tucked it gently into the pocket of his pants.

The woman was gorgeous, undeniably. Small and svelte, with curly brunette hair and the easy grace of someone who knew with absolute certainty that they were beautiful. Thalia felt a knife twist itself into her gut as the woman and Percy exchanged a few quiet words which were carried away by the wind before she could hear them. But she looked at Percy again, and somehow she knew that this wasn't what she thought. Luke was twisting the world again.

"Kronos is the Lord of Time, Thalia," Luke said. "He can show you the future. Percy is just like his father - faithless, cruel, and willing to prey on the love of as many women as he can ensnare. Come build a family with me - with Annabeth - and it can be like old times."

"The thing about old times, Luke," Thalia managed eventually, "Is that they're over for a reason. And they can't come back."

Luke's face darkened with rage, but Thalia felt herself waking up and simply smiled at the man she used to know.

When she awoke, Percy was cooking something on a stove, and on a plate in front of her was an omelette and some toast. Thalia sat upright and glanced around - she was in fresh, clean clothes, her shoulder bandaged and supported properly and a backpack full of supplies leaning against the couch she had passed out on.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Percy said. Thalia fought down the instinct to fight with him - it was a dream. Just a dream.

"Morning," she replied, then gestured to the plate of food. "Is this for me?"

"Yup," Percy confirmed, flipping his own omelette in the pan. "And you should eat up, because we've got a big day ahead of us."

As she ate, he filled her in on the plan. In exchange for the location of Daedalus and a method of navigating the maze, they'd have to clear out one of Hephaestus's forges which had become monster infested. Apparently it was under Mount Saint Helens, fed by the rage of the enormous world-ending storm monster Typhon, and was being used by… something that Hephaestus couldn't figure out. Pretty typical demigod quest, overall.

"So, how are we getting there?" Thalia asked, after demolishing the (surprisingly tasty) omelette.

Percy wordlessly pointed over her shoulder. When she turned, the little metal spider chittered and shook, apparently resurrected from its unfortunate fate to a rather healthier existence.

"Delightful," she sighed.

After breakfast, the pair said their goodbyes to Hephaestus, who was rather friendly for an Olympian, and set off into the Labyrinth after the small metal spider.

If the air around Hephaestus's shop had been hot, the spider was leading them straight into the depths of the Fields of Punishment. It wasn't just swelteringly hot, but almost sauna-like, or like opening an oven to check on your cookies. The stone walls practically glowed with heat. Ahead of them, a roar grew in volume as they approached, clattering and clanging and rushing like a river filled with railroad spikes.

After a few miles, the roar was deafening - but the spider stopped, finally. Thalia and Percy stepped past it into the entrance of an enormous cavern, easily a mile in every direction and shaped like a cathedral hall. A network of steel and stone bridges spiderwebbed their way around the cave, with lathes and forges and anvils and everything else besides placed atop pillars evenly spaced throughout the cavern. It would have been astonishing if Thalia had been able to comprehend what she was actually looking at.

Dark shapes milled about on the platforms, too far away and too deep in darkness for Thalia to make out anything more than dim silhouettes.

"How do we handle this?" Percy asked. "There's gotta be fifty, a hundred of them, at least. And I have no idea what they are."

"Let's take it easy for now and try to get an idea of what we're dealing with," Thalia answered, "And what they're making that needs this kind of facility. Keep it quiet and follow me, Kelp Head."

Together the two snuck along the bridge as stealthily as they could, stealing from cover to cover, hiding behind minecarts and barrels and all manner of machinery as they made their way slowly towards the central machine of the entire cavern - an enormous metal anvil, the size of a small car, and on it a glowing blade being worked. Thalia and Percy ducked into the cover of an enormous minecart.

"Holy shit," Thalia breathed. Four of the shapes were supervising the pour, and in the dim light of the glowing metal, she could get a better view of what they actually were. Eight-foot-tall human-seal-dog hybrids dipped their stubby hand-flipper-paws into the steel and pulled lumps of slag off the top, skimming the casting clean.

"The blade is almost complete," one said, in a whimper-bark. "It needs to be quenched in blood again, to fuse the metals properly. Then a final sharpening, and the Master's blade will be finished. Truly our kind's greatest achievement - better than any godly weapon."

"Fuck, I remember these guys," Percy said. "Tyson talks about them sometimes - Telekhines. Apparently, they forged almost all of the weapons of the gods and even some for the Titans, but Zeus cast them into Tartarus for using magic." He looked worried, suddenly. "I hope he doesn't cast me into Tartarus for using magic."

"They must be making another weapon for the Titans, then," Thalia deduced, "Or they wouldn't be hiding it from Hephaestus."

One of the beasts sniffed the air. "Do you smell that?" He asked. "It smells like… the sea."

Another nodded, discarding the hammer he'd been using to work the blade. "Demigods," he said. "Here to hurt us. To send us back to the pit."

Percy's eyes went wide. "Go," he said. "I'll hold them here. Maybe the metal spider can take you back to Hephaestus and you can tell him what's going on."

Thalia instantly hated that idea. "But you'll be killed!" She shook her head. "I'm staying here, and we're fighting our way out."

Percy nodded. "Yeah, probably. But they can only smell me - I think they know the sea but not the sky. You can make it out as long as I keep them off you. Besides, we don't have much choice. Your shoulder still isn't healed fully and even in the best health, we'd struggle with how many there are." Thalia wanted to punch him, badly.

Instead, she did two things that surprised her. First, she nodded - and then, she kissed Percy, hard.

"Don't you fucking dare die, Kelp Head," she whispered harshly. On the other side of the minecart, they could hear the flippers coming closer. Percy's eyes were unfocused, his cheeks flushed, and not just from the heat. Then, he grabbed the side of the minecart and launched himself onto the top, hurling ridiculous insults at the beasts.

Thalia did something she hated herself for.

She ran.

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate. I hope you're all spending good time with the people and things you love.

5,370 words. Wrote most of it between midnight and 2:30 AM to try and get it out on Christmas day because I'm stable and have a good sleep schedule, I promise. Anyways - I hope you enjoyed this. I had a good time writing Thalia's introspection and the dream sequence. Hopefully I didn't skim over the Mt. St. Helens part too bad, but I figured that there really wasn't that much interesting in it. Ultimately, without the school segment, the only interesting part is from Percy's perspective, and that'll be next chapter. And yes, I know Hephaestus is way different from the characterization he gets in BotL - I never really bought him as cold from bitterness, especially given how nice I perceived him to be to Leo later. He's not a happy, nice dude, but he's not rude as hell either.

Sorry for the delay, as ever. Wrote myself into a whole bunch of holes and had to find ways out, and also just kind of lost the headspace and energy to write - got insanely busy for a long time. I think it came out okay, though.

Also - I really appreciate all the reviews. They've pushed me to keep working on this, they've made me feel like it's vaguely worth writing, and it means something that people like it (especially because the FFN view counter is broken, so I can't use that anymore).

Happy holidays.