2008, Outskirts of Westover Hall, Maine (Thalia really, really hates Percy right about now)
That was just great. Her first proper mission for Camp, and it was basically a failure. Thalia seethed by a small pine tree for a while, not wanting to have a breakdown in front of the Hunters or Gods forbid, Percy. That idiot was the reason they lost Annabeth to a stupidly brave decision to save her and Percy.
She really really really hated being a child of the Big Three.
After giving the tree next to her a swift kick (and muffling her shout of pain afterwards), she only realised it was a pine tree when she glared up at it, and felt weirdly guilty for some reason. She kicked it again just to prove to herself that pine trees didn't have any kind of weird hold on her, brushed off the needles that had gotten on her coat, then walk-limped back into the camp the Hunters of Artemis had finished setting up.
The dogs on guard duty prowled the edge of the crescent-shaped camp, because of course Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and Lady of the Moon, like all the Olympians, had to advertise her patronage incase anybody forgot how she was.
The Hunters already had a fire going, thankfully her high and mightyness Zoe Nightshade was in one of the tents so Thalia didn't have to endure her any more than she absolutely needed to. Grover was literally fawning over every little thing the Hunters did which - eww - and Percy and Nico were talking about something. Probably comparing how cool they were or whatever idiotic half-bloods did together, Thalia guessed. She really didn't want to speak to any of them, she'd probably argue some more with Percy, Grover would just look sad at her. and she knew that she was awful at talking to new campers - apparently what she wished she knew at 12 wasn't 'child-friendly' enough for the new campers coming in, and apparently one Aphrodite boy she'd 'traumatised' - so she hung out with the dogs, which were actually pretty neat.
She didn't know how much time had passed, she did that sometimes when she'd just loose track of time or stand still and forget to move, she tried her best not to think about it, but threw glares at the nearby pine trees for good measure. All she knew was that she looked up and now Percy had vanished (and it was Nico and Grover, but Thalia guessed they were talking about his game whatever it was), Thalia would usually have been concerned when a camper disappeared to speak to a God, but the fact the camper in question was Percy diminished that concern by a lot.
She already knew the 'other option' Bianca was being offered, and she hoped the girl would remember her brother, rather than run off to join an eternal girls club, but she had absolutely no idea why Percy was called in. She knew the Hunters really didn't like boys and would only put up with them under the direst of circumstances.
She stayed with the dogs, getting a few odd looks from one of the Hunters that Thalia vaguely recognised from the last time she'd met the Hunt (before meeting Harry). Thalia was slightly relieved when she thought about that. She knew that the Great Prophecy was probably gonna involve her, some way, but thanks to Harry, she could see that there was a chance she had an out. She wanted to call on her mirror to talk to Ginny or Harry but she knew that if the Hunters found out, or worse, Percy, then Harry's plan would probably be stopped. Even if the Gods weren't against it, Thalia couldn't risk the chance that she might be able to avoid the Great Prophecy without doing something drastic.
Thalia looked up again and shook herself. Every time she stood still, it seemed like time just sped up around her, now Percy was out of Artemis' tent and the Hunters were nearby - and Thalia could see the way Bianca stood next to Zoe that the girl had made the decision to join the Hunt. Thalia fought the urge to curse her, abandoning her brother like that just seemed cruel.
Grimacing, the daughter of Zeus made her way to Percy, with Grover not too far behind, to figure out why he of all people was invited to Artemis' tent without being killed.
"So instead of getting two campers to help us in the fight against the Titans, we have one, and we've lost a camper." Thalia bit out. She didn't like putting Annabeth as just 'a camper' but it was true, this mission had been a net loss to camp, putting aside how awesome Annabeth was as a person, she was one of the most experienced campers they had.
"Hey, don't call Annabeth 'a camper'" Percy fumed at her, he looked really angry at that. Well tough, the daughter of Zeus was past the point of caring what he thought.
"It doesn't change the fact that she isn't here" Thalia snapped back, Grover's eyes went wide but he stayed quiet. That was good, Thalia was trying her best to keep a hold on her temper as it was without some pointless interjections. "She's gone and everything else aside, that's a big loss to camp even without the recruitment problems we've been having." She knew that she probably shouldn't have said that, Chiron made it clear that their recruitment issues were supposed to be a secret, but she was enjoying how it made both Percy and Grover flinch.
"But we Artemis said she'd try and find Annabeth, and Bianca's joined the Hunters, it's not like -" Percy tried to rationalise what happened, but Thalia was too annoyed with him. It should have been simple, two of the most powerful half-bloods in camp in a team of the most experienced campers, should have easily been able to get two half-bloods from a school, but no, the heroic Percy Jackson had to mess it up. Thalia vaguely noticed that a few of the hunters were looking their way, probably wondering why a boy would sully their sacred Lady's name by speaking it or something stuck up like that.
"We don't know if she can, the gods say they'll do a lot of things but don't." That was probably a bad thing to say but Thalia really didn't care, she'd been prepared to die before, spent years as a tree and had her friends completely change, she could deal with some prissy immortal girl-group. "The Hunt does it's own thing, they won't come to defend camp, they'd probably cheer if it burned down anyway, it's the camp versus the Titans, that's it, and because of you we've lost one of the best campers we had." Thalia felt tears build up, but she swore she wouldn't cry, not in front of him at least.
Angrily turning away, Thalia quickly wiped at her eyes, passing it off as her checking her hair and decided that she'd head into the forest and call Ginny. Screw the Hunters and their stupid camp.
Before she could get too far, one of the hunters, the one that gave her weird looks when she was walking among the hounds, came up to her.
"We can appreciate your sadness at loosing a maiden, we are upset at the loss too-" she began, and Thalia whirled around, to do what she didn't know, but she wanted to do something
Before she could, the girl carried on speaking.
"We grieve every lost maiden, but our Lady said she would be found, and she will be, Annabeth Chase is not dead, she did not reach the sea so is somewhere in the monster's grip, but Lady Artemis will not let that remain the case."
The thought of Annabeth being rescued and not dead knocked all the fight out of Thalia. The girl kept on speaking.
"While you were emotional and spoke hastily we can excuse words said under such times, but do not accuse the Lady Artemis of failing to fulfil a promise she has made, she is .. unlike many of the other Gods in that way." The girl smiled at this, and Thalia slowly nodded along ignoring the dried tear tracks on her face - she was angry and wanted to attack something, but she wasn't stupid enough to pass up a warning given to her by a God. No trash-talking gods was a rule just behind 'don't be too proud' in Godly Survival 101 that all half-bloods learned.
"Thanks." Thalia guessed that she had to say something, and couldn't think of anything else to say.
The other girl smiled again.
"We came here to hunt the manticore, but finding two children of the Lord's Zeus and Poseidon was unexpected, I would have thought a better use of such skill would be to have each leading a team of campers or satyrs?" The girl finished the question with a slight tilt of her head, like she couldn't work it out.
That was the thing with the Hunt, Thalia remembered, once they excused something or implied it was time to move on, they did. It was a little odd, but Thalia wasn't going to say anything this time.
"Yeah, well we were the closest and Grover, the satyr, said it was urgent and he needed help, we'd not found two half-bloods like in ages, so-" Thalia shrugged. It was easy talking to this Huntress, she guessed that they weren't all as stuck up as Zoe.
"Yes, it is sad that there are so few half-bloods, but that makes each one more precious, especially given theā¦current state of your Camp." The girl finished hesitantly, but this time Thalia found that she was the one smiling.
"We're hoping we can stop it before more campers die-" Thalia started, not sure why she was sharing so much.
"So do we." The Huntress gestured behind her to the camp. "Lady Artemis and the Hunt are doing what we can to hunt as many monsters before they trouble half-bloods, but there are never enough who wish to join."
Thalia had a feeling the conversation was going somewhere, but she was tired, holding back tears, had maybe lost her last best friend and had just had an argument, she didn't have the energy to worry about where the conversation was heading.
A/N: I wanted to show Thalia/Percy being more argumentative and also show the Hunters beyond Zoe and how they are not completely aloof, and I wanted to hint at them being a bit odd that I think could play into something more (ie once something's done, in their eyes, it's done, no point in going back, so if they 'excuse' you for something, then there's no need to apologise because there's nothing to apologise for, and it could even be insulting since it implies you've not accepted their 'generous' excusing of a fault)
Plus I felt like in the books Thalia's decision about the Hunt kinda comes out of nowhere, there's no build up to her acceptance or lessening of her hostility to the Hunt/hunters (mainly in the form of Zoe Nightshade in the book), so I wanted to build up something like that here
(she's not going to make a decision yet, but I just want to start something here first)
