Huntress of My Heart

by The last hero of humanity

A divided goddess, a hero destined for the impossible. Diana, the Roman version of Artemis, finds herself inexplicably drawn to Percy Jackson. Through secret meetings, training sessions, and shared battles, a forbidden love is born that defies millennia of divine tradition. A story where the heart can be stronger than the oldest oath.

"Huntress of My Heart"

Destiny, as I've learned over the years, has a twisted sense of humor. And believe me, being a demigod, I've seen enough twists of fate to write a complete encyclopedia about its cosmic jokes. But this one... this one takes the grand prize.

It all began years ago, during that mission to rescue Annabeth and the goddess Artemis. I was fourteen years old and, as usual, the world was on the brink of chaos. You know, just another Tuesday in the life of Percy Jackson.

The first time I saw Artemis in person, with her twelve-year-old girl form and those silver eyes that seemed to contain all the moonlight, I felt a shiver run down my spine. It wasn't exactly fear, it was more like something in the universe had clicked, though at that moment I had no idea what it meant.

I remember the scene with absolute clarity: Westover Hall wrapped in winter fog, the snowy cliff where I almost lost my life (again), and that blanket of stars that seemed to observe us with cold indifference. Thalia, Grover, and I had just rescued the Di Angelo siblings from the clutches of Dr. Thorn, who turned out to be a manticore. Because of course, why settle for normal human teachers when you can have monsters with venomous scorpion tails teaching algebra?

The goddess of the hunt had looked at me with that mixture of disdain and curiosity that gods usually reserve for particularly annoying demigods. And I, as always, had done an exceptional job stumbling over my own words.

"Men," she had said with a voice colder than the winter wind that lashed at us, "always so impulsive."

I wanted to respond with something intelligent, something that would prove not all boys are complete impulsive idiots. But all that came out of my mouth was an eloquent:

"Uh..."

Great, Jackson. That surely impressed her.

Artemis had rolled her eyes so hard I could almost hear them spinning in their sockets. The hunters around her looked at me as if I were some particularly pathetic specimen in a zoo of semidivine rarities.

What nobody knew then, not even me, was that night would mark the beginning of something complicated. So complicated that "complicated" falls ridiculously short.

The real story began hours later, when I was standing guard at the temporary camp the hunters had established. The cold bit my cheeks and my numb fingers could barely hold Riptide. I was internally cursing Thalia for assigning me the last shift when I felt someone watching me from the shadows.

"Who's there?" I asked, trying to sound threatening, but my voice cracked on the last syllable. Great, another point for my credibility as a fearsome warrior.

A soft laugh, like silver bells in the winter breeze, was my only answer. Then, a figure emerged from among the snow-covered trees.

She had the appearance of a sixteen-year-old, with hair white as freshly fallen snow and eyes that changed color under the moonlight, sometimes silver like ancient coins, sometimes a deep amber that seemed to contain hidden fires. She wore the silver uniform of the hunters, but there was something different about her, something I couldn't quite place.

"So you're the famous Percy Jackson," she said with a mocking smile that caused an inexplicable knot in my stomach. "The boy who makes gods angry as a hobby."

"It's a natural gift," I replied with my characteristic sarcasm. "Some are born with talent for music, others for making immortal beings who can turn you into a puddle of salt water with a blink angry."

She let out a genuine laugh that sounded surprisingly musical. Then, to my surprise, she sat beside me on the fallen log where I was keeping watch, without asking permission.

"I'm Diana," she introduced herself, extending a hand gloved in silver leather. "And I think we'll be good friends."

Her touch was warm, too warm for such a cold night, and for a moment I felt as if an electric current ran through my entire body. It was definitely not like Thalia's lightning; this was different, more subtle, more... disturbing.

"Are you always this clumsy with a sword, or is today a special day?" she continued with that mocking smile that, for some strange reason, didn't irritate me as much as it should have.

"Excuse me?" I responded, genuinely offended. My wounded pride must have shown on my face, because she laughed again, this time more softly.

"Your stance is wrong," she explained, standing up with a movement so fluid it seemed like gravity had decided to give her a special discount. "You're keeping your weight on the wrong foot and your arms are too tense. They'll disarm you in two seconds if you continue like that."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I muttered, but I also stood up, more intrigued than I wanted to admit. "And what do you know? Hunters use bows, don't they?"

Diana arched a platinum eyebrow with perfect precision.

"Stereotypes, Jackson? Really?" She unsheathed a hunting knife from her belt so quickly I barely saw the movement. The blade glowed with a silver radiance that didn't seem to be simply a reflection of the moon. "Show me what you can do."

During the next hour, Diana gave me a lesson in humility that I would remember for years. She disarmed me again and again, always with that mocking smile, always with a biting comment that oscillated between irritating and hilarious. But she also taught me. She corrected my stance, showed me how to anticipate an opponent's movement, how to use my surroundings to my advantage.

At one point, after knocking me down for the fifth consecutive time (but who's counting, right?), she leaned over me with an indecipherable expression.

"For being the son of Poseidon, I expected more," she said, but her tone wasn't of disappointment but of curiosity. "Where is all that fury of the sea that the nymphs talk about?"

"Probably vacationing in the Hamptons," I replied, rubbing my sore elbow. "Along with my dignity and my ability to remain standing for more than thirty seconds in front of you."

That drew another laugh from her, and for an instant, something changed in her eyes, a flash of something I couldn't identify but that made me suddenly feel breathless, and not from the physical exertion.

When we finally sat down, exhausted and covered in sweat despite the biting cold, I looked at her with a new appreciation.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked, genuinely intrigued. "I thought hunters hated boys. You know, the vow of eternal chastity and all that."

Diana seemed to consider the question, looking towards the stars with an indecipherable expression.

"Let's say I'm curious," she finally responded, and her voice had lost that mocking edge, replaced by something softer, almost vulnerable. "You don't meet someone who faces a god of time and lives to tell about it every day."

"Most days you don't either," I joked, and she smiled, a genuine smile this time, not mocking.

"Besides," she added, and for an instant I swore her eyes glowed with their own light, not reflected from the moon, "someone has to make sure you don't die in a spectacularly stupid way."

"And that someone is you?"

"Apparently." Her smile became enigmatic. "Consider yourself having a personal guardian angel, Jackson. Although one with very little patience and a worrying tendency to want to stab you when you say stupid things."

"Which is approximately ninety percent of the time," I added.

"Well, the boy knows basic math. There's hope for you after all."

From that moment on, our paths began to cross with a frequency that could hardly be coincidence. During the quest to find Artemis and Annabeth, I saw her several times in the distance, always watching, always alert. Her eyes followed my every move as if she were evaluating a particularly fascinating experiment.

When I finally rescued Annabeth and she rescued Artemis (and no, the irony doesn't escape me), we exchanged a glance that lasted a second longer than necessary. As if we shared a secret that even I didn't know.

The strange thing was that, whenever Diana and Artemis were in the same place, they never seemed to interact directly. It was as if an invisible dividing line separated them, and neither seemed aware of the other's existence. At that time I didn't give it much importance, assuming it was some strange hierarchy among the hunters.

It was after the battle on Mount Othrys, when Zoë Nightshade died and became a constellation, that Diana approached me as I was observing the night sky from the mountainside.

"It hurts to lose someone you care about, doesn't it?" she asked softly, sitting beside me without making the slightest noise.

I nodded, without taking my gaze from the stars. "I didn't know her well, but she was brave. Braver than many."

"Zoë was... special," Diana spoke with a voice I had never heard from her before, laden with centuries of history. "Two thousand years serving faithfully, without questions, without doubts."

I looked at her sideways, surprised by the detailed knowledge she seemed to have. "Did you know her well?"

Something passed across her face then, a flash of pain so ancient that it seemed carved into her very essence.

"You could say that," she responded enigmatically. Then, before I could ask more, she added: "We all wear masks, Percy. Some for days, others for millennia."

"That sounds... lonely."

A sad smile curved her lips. "It is. But sometimes, very rarely, someone appears and makes you forget for a moment the weight of those masks."

Our gazes met, and for an instant, I saw something in her changing eyes that left me breathless. It wasn't the usual mocking hunter I knew, but something deeper, older, more powerful.

"Why do you help me, Diana?" I asked, the question that had been circling in my mind since our first encounter. "Really. No excuses about rebel worms or partial eclipses."

She contemplated the stars, particularly the new constellation of The Huntress. "Because you're different," she said finally. "You're loyal to the point of stupidity, brave to the point of recklessness, and honest to the point of being irritating." She looked at me, and there was a vulnerability in her eyes that she had never shown before. "And because with you I can be... myself. Without expectations, without prophecies, without the weight of eons on my shoulders."

It was the most sincere answer she had given me, and I felt something change between us. An invisible barrier crumbling, or perhaps a bridge being built.

"Well," I said, after a moment of silence, "I guess that explains why you treat me so well."

Diana burst into laughter that resonated in the night. "Treat you well? I've turned you into a human pincushion at least three times this month."

"And that's being kind by your standards," I smiled. "I worry to think how you treat people you dislike."

"Oh, they never live long enough to tell about it," she replied with a dangerous gleam in her eyes that I couldn't tell if was a joke or truth.

When I returned to Camp Half-Blood, I thought I wouldn't see her again. The hunters have their own affairs, after all, and it's not like I was their favorite person in the world. But I was wrong.

Barely two weeks later, while I was training alone in the arena, I felt that characteristic shiver on the back of my neck that you experience when someone is watching you. I turned, sword in hand, only to find her leaning against a column, arms crossed and that mocking smile that was beginning to seem disturbingly attractive to me.

"You're still dropping your left guard too much, Jackson," she commented, as if we had been in the middle of a conversation. "One of these days, some ungraceful monster is going to rip out your spleen through there."

Our training sessions soon became a constant. Diana had a teaching style that combined military precision with creative sadism that would have made Ares proud.

"Faster," she demanded, throwing practice knives at me that passed close enough to my ear to feel the displaced air. "Do you think a monster is going to wait while you scratch your head thinking what to do?"

"You could be a little less enthusiastic with the knives," I protested, dodging by millimeters a blade that stuck in the column right behind me.

Diana smiled, and there was something dangerously seductive in the way she twirled her next knife between her fingers. "Where would the fun be in that, Jackson? Danger is the best teacher."

Over time, I noticed that her teaching style had a pattern. She began each session relentless, demanding, almost cruel. But as we progressed, her movements became more fluid, less lethal and more... how to describe it? Dancing? There was a hypnotic gracefulness in the way she moved, and more than once I found myself distracted, observing the perfect arc of her arms or the way the silver light seemed to envelop her when she executed a particularly complex movement.

"You're distracted," she reproached me one afternoon, after knocking me down for the third consecutive time.

"I am not," I protested, although the heat in my cheeks betrayed me.

"Your eyes say otherwise," she replied, and for a moment her voice lost that mocking edge, becoming almost soft. She leaned over me, our faces so close I could count the golden flecks in her amber irises. "What is it that you see, Percy Jackson, when you watch me train?"

The question, unexpectedly intimate, left me momentarily speechless. The truth was too dangerous to say aloud: that I saw her, not as a hunter, not as a mentor, but as the most beautiful and lethal creature I had ever known.

"I see..." I began, swallowing, "techniques. I'm analyzing your movements to learn."

Diana held my gaze a second longer than necessary, and I knew she didn't believe me for an instant. An enigmatic smile curved her lips.

"Liar," she whispered, but there was no accusation in her voice, just a kind of shared understanding. Then, with that supernatural speed of hers, she moved away and extended a hand to help me up. "Again. And this time, try to focus on the battle, not the warrior."

As the months passed, our training dynamic evolved. Diana no longer just taught me combat, but strategy, survival, history of monsters and their weaknesses. And in the process, we began to develop our own language, not just of words, but of gestures and looks.

I could read her mood by the way she held her bow: relaxed but alert meant she was in a good mood; tense and low meant something was worrying her; casually pointed in my direction meant I had said something stupid and she was considering turning me into a colander.

And she, for her part, seemed to have memorized each of my expressions. She knew how to distinguish between my genuine smile and the forced one I used when trying to hide concerns. She recognized the exact moment when my mind began to wander during her lessons on the history of famous hunters. She could even predict when I was about to make some sarcastic comment, sometimes before I myself knew I was going to make it.

"No," she would say, raising a finger in warning before I opened my mouth. "Whatever you're thinking, don't say it."

"How do you know I was going to say something?"

"Your left eyebrow arches slightly and that ridiculous dimple appears on your right cheek when you're about to let out some particularly creative idiocy."

"Do you observe my dimples that much, Diana?" I asked with a deliberately provocative smile.

"Only to anticipate disasters," she responded without missing a beat, but I noticed the slight blush that colored her cheeks.

Our growing synchrony was put to the test during an unofficial mission to rescue Nico di Angelo. The son of Hades, still consumed by grief and anger over the death of his sister Bianca, had fled the camp. Chiron was worried, and although he couldn't send an official quest after him, he had given me permission to search for him.

I didn't expect Diana to offer to accompany me.

"He's a confused and powerful child," she said when I looked at her in surprise. "And you have a special talent for getting into trouble. Someone has to make sure you both return alive."

We tracked Nico to a cemetery in New Orleans, where he had apparently been practicing his powers as a son of Hades. The problem was that his "practices" had attracted the attention of monsters that sensed the presence of a powerful demigod.

When we arrived, the cemetery was a chaos of revived skeletons, blood-thirsty empousai, and a terrified Nico cornered against an ancient crypt.

"You go left, I'll go right," Diana said without needing further explanation. With that simple phrase, we both knew exactly what to do.

We moved like a single entity, anticipating each other's movements without the need for words. When she ducked, I attacked from above. When I rolled to one side, she already had an arrow ready for the monster trying to take advantage of my moment of vulnerability.

At one point, I found myself surrounded by three empousai. Instinctively, I shouted: "Now!"

Without hesitation, without questioning, Diana fired three arrows in rapid succession just as I threw myself to the ground. The arrows crossed the space where my head had been a second before and found their marks in the monsters.

When the battle ended and we reached Nico, the boy was looking at us with a mixture of amazement and distrust.

"Who are you?" he asked, though he clearly recognized me.

"Percy Jackson," I replied, "and she is—"

"Diana," she introduced herself, bending down to be at the child's height. "A friend."

Nico studied her with those dark eyes that seemed to contain all the wisdom and sadness of the underworld. "You are not what you seem," he said finally, with that disturbing insight he possessed.

Diana tensed beside me, but maintained her serene smile. "Few things are, young son of Hades."

On the trip back to New York, while Nico slept in the back seat of the taxi we had managed to get (the driver was conveniently under the influence of the Mist to not question our disheveled appearance or the weapons), Diana and I shared one of those moments of complicit silence that had become increasingly frequent between us.

"Did what Nico said bother you?" I finally asked, in a low voice so as not to wake the boy.

Diana looked out the window, the lights of the highway intermittently illuminating her profile. "Children of Hades sometimes see more than they should."

"And what did he see?"

She turned to me, and for an instant, her eyes seemed to change, becoming older, deeper. "That, Percy Jackson, is a question for another time."

When our hands met in the space between the seats, neither of us commented on it. We simply let our fingers intertwine, taking comfort in each other's presence after a difficult day.

And so, with each mission, each battle, each shared moment, what had begun as a strange friendship slowly transformed into something deeper, more complex, more... dangerous.

Because falling in love with a hunter of Artemis wasn't simply complicated. It was potentially deadly.

The following years were a series of seemingly casual encounters that, looking back, had little that was casual about them. Diana appeared at the most unexpected moments: during my exploration of the Labyrinth, at Camp Half-Blood when the borders weakened due to the poisoning of Thalia's Pine, even once in the middle of a battle against a group of empousai in Detroit. Always with that playful smile and that peculiar gleam in her eyes that made me wonder if she knew something I didn't.

On the eve of Halloween, a year after the war against Cronos and months before Hera decided to play leader exchange between camps, Diana appeared at my window with two suspiciously large bags.

"Get up, Jackson," she announced, throwing one of the bags onto my bed. "We leave in twenty minutes."

I sat up, still half asleep, rubbing my eyes to focus. "What time is it?"

"The time when mortals begin to celebrate their diluted version of ancient pagan rituals," she responded cryptically. "Halloween. And you and I are going to experience it."

"Halloween?" I repeated, confused. "Do you want to go trick-or-treating? Aren't you a bit old for that?"

Her laughter resonated in the cabin, clear and melodious. "Oh, Jackson, always so literal. No, we're not going trick-or-treating. We're going to a costume party in Manhattan."

That woke me up completely. "A party? You? The hunter who would rather face the hydra than socialize with mortals?"

Diana shrugged with studied elegance. "Even immortals need occasional reminders of why we prefer the solitude of the forest to the collective stupidity of civilization."

"That makes sense, I guess," I muttered, opening the bag to find... "What is this?"

"Your costume, obviously," she replied, taking out the contents of her own bag. "And before you ask, no, you don't have a choice. It's already decided."

I examined the garments with growing horror and fascination. A Victorian groom's suit, complete with vest, bow tie, and an antique-looking jacket. All in muted tones of blue and gray.

"I'm supposed to be...?"

"Victor," Diana confirmed, unfolding her own costume: an elegant pale blue wedding dress, strategically torn and stained with what I hoped was paint. "And I'll be Emily."

"Corpse Bride?" I asked, recognizing the characters from the Tim Burton movie. "Seriously?"

"Do you have a problem with that?" Her arched eyebrow was a clear challenge.

"No, it's just that..." I stopped, suddenly aware of the irony. "Wait. You realize they're fiancés, right? You, a hunter, dressed as a bride?"

Diana's smile was dangerously sweet. "It's a purely aesthetic coincidence. I like blue. And the undead aesthetic."

"Right," I replied, unable to contain my own smile. "Pure coincidence that you chose couple costumes."

"Exactly," she nodded with exaggerated seriousness. "Now change. We have a party to arrive at spectacularly late."

Forty minutes later, we found ourselves in someone's apartment in the Upper West Side, surrounded by costumed college students and deafening music. Diana had obtained invitations through some method I preferred not to ask about, though I suspected it included some kind of manipulation of the Mist.

The most surprising thing wasn't being at a mortal party when I should have been at camp, not even the fact that my companion was an immortal hunter disguised as a corpse bride. The truly amazing thing was how well Diana integrated into the environment.

She laughed, chatted, even danced with a naturalness that left me open-mouthed. No one would have suspected that she preferred the company of wolves to that of humans, or that she could turn a man into a human pincushion for looking at her inappropriately.

"How do you do that?" I asked her while we shared a moment of relative tranquility next to the drinks table.

"Do what?" she replied, her corpse makeup giving her an ethereal appearance under the strobe lights.

"Fit in. Seem... normal," I gestured vaguely around us. "As if you weren't an immortal hunter with an aversion to civilization."

Diana smiled, a flash of her true nature showing beneath the disguise. "Centuries of practice, Jackson. Sometimes it's necessary to blend in with mortals. It's a skill like any other."

As we spoke, a clearly drunk boy, dressed as a zombie, staggered over.

"Hey, you two look amazing!" he exclaimed, too close for my liking. "Couple costumes are the best! How long have you been together?"

Before I could correct his assumption, Diana linked her arm with mine, adopting an expression of adoration I had never seen on her.

"Two years," she replied with a sweet voice that sounded nothing like her usual tone. "But sometimes it seems like an eternity, doesn't it, honey?"

I was paralyzed for a second, until her disguised pinch in my side brought me back to reality.

"Y-yes," I stammered, playing along. "A very... happy eternity."

The zombie gave us a thumbs up, spilling part of his drink in the process. "Great! You guys are like... so perfect together. You should get married or something."

"Oh, I don't know," I replied, finding my balance and deciding to continue the joke. "If we're really going to get married, I'd have to ask her boss for permission first. And I don't think Artemis would allow it, right?"

Diana's pinch this time was much more painful.

"My cousin and his jokes," she explained to the zombie with a forced giggle. "Always with those references to Greek mythology. He's a total nerd."

When the zombie finally staggered elsewhere, Diana glared at me.

"Artemis? Seriously, Jackson?"

"What? I thought we were playing," I defended myself, rubbing my sore side. "Besides, you started it with all that 'oh, my beloved boyfriend' act."

"It was to maintain our cover," she replied, although a slight blush appeared under her pale makeup.

"Our cover for... what exactly? Infiltrating a college party?"

Diana rolled her eyes, but there was a reluctant smile on her lips. "You're impossible, Percy Jackson."

"Part of my charm," I replied, winking at her.

Later that night, as we walked through Central Park on the way back (Diana insisted that taxis were "death traps with wheels"), the conversation returned to the topic of our costumes.

"You know," I commented, pointing to our outfits, "if you want us to get married, you could just ask. No need for all this elaborate costume scene."

Diana pushed me playfully, but with enough force to almost knock me down. "In your dreams, Jackson."

"I'm just saying it's a strange choice for someone who has sworn eternal chastity," I continued, enjoying the rare privilege of being able to joke about a topic that would normally be taboo.

"It's just a costume," she insisted, but there was something in her voice, a note of doubt perhaps, that made me look at her more closely.

Under the moonlight, with her makeup partially faded and her blue dress gently waving in the night breeze, she seemed almost... longing? It was an expression I had never associated with the fierce hunter.

"Have you never wondered?" I asked, my voice more serious now. "What it would be like? A different life, different choices..."

Diana stopped, looking towards the Central Park lake. Her profile against the almost full moon created such a beautiful image that it left me breathless.

"Sometimes," she admitted in a voice so low I barely heard her, "in another life, perhaps..."

She turned to me, and for a moment, all the disguises — both literal and metaphorical — seemed to fall away. It wasn't Diana the hunter who was looking at me, but someone more vulnerable, more human.

"But some decisions were made too long ago to change them now," she continued, an echo of something ancient in her voice. "Some paths, once chosen, cannot be undone."

"Not even for love?" The words escaped my lips before I could stop them.

The intensity of her gaze pierced me like one of her silver arrows. "Especially for love, Percy. Love complicates everything."

The silence that followed was laden with unspoken meanings, with possibilities that floated in the air between us like autumn leaves, beautiful but ephemeral.

Finally, Diana broke the moment with a smile that tried to be light but didn't quite succeed. "Besides, if we got married, you'd have to deal with me for all eternity. Not even the hero of Olympus is prepared for that challenge."

"I don't know," I replied, following her attempt to lighten the mood, "it could be an interesting adventure. And you know how much I like impossible adventures."

Her laughter, though soft, seemed to contain echoes of centuries of history. "Maybe in another life, Jackson. Maybe then."

"To the future then," I said, raising an imaginary hand as if toasting.

"To the future," she replied, mimicking my gesture.

And although neither said it aloud, there was a silent promise in that exchange. A promise that, without knowing it then, would have to wait through amnesias, wars against giants, and a journey to hell itself before having the chance to be fulfilled.

Our relationship was... complicated. She was a hunter of Artemis, which meant that technically she should hate all men and maintain a vow of eternal chastity. I was a son of Poseidon with a special talent for getting into trouble and a prophecy on my shoulders that would probably end with my premature death. It was like the beginning of a bad joke: "What happens when an immortal hunter and a demigod with attention deficit disorder try to be friends?"

But somehow, it worked. Diana became a constant in my chaotic life, a comforting presence amidst apocalyptic prophecies and temperamental gods. She taught me combat techniques that not even Chiron had mentioned, told me stories about places she had visited throughout the centuries (though always in a vague manner, as if she feared revealing too much), and always, always, found time to mock me.

"Don't you have anything better to do than save my skin?" I asked her after she took down a dracaena that was about to turn me into demigod kebab during a particularly disastrous mission on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

"And miss the chance to see your panic face? Dream on, Jackson," she replied, winking at me before disappearing into the shadows as if she had never been there.

During the battle for the Labyrinth, when Cronos was gathering his army and the camp was being attacked from within, Diana proved to be an invaluable ally. Her silver arrows found their mark with supernatural precision, and more than once she saved me from becoming monster food.

The most curious thing was the almost absurd creativity she developed to justify her constant presence at my side. Her excuses for appearing in the most unexpected moments and places evolved from the plausible to the completely ridiculous over time.

At first, her justifications maintained a certain logic: "Artemis sent me to watch this area," "There are rumors of ancient monsters awakening nearby," or "The hunters are tracking an unusual movement of magical creatures that leads here."

After a few weeks, her pretexts began to become more elaborate and specific: "I'm following the trail of a magical boar that only appears during partial eclipses in leap years," "The stars predicted a spatiotemporal anomaly precisely at this coordinate," or "I detected an inverted nymph migration pattern that indicates the presence of a primordial creature."

By the time we reached mid-summer, her excuses had reached legendary levels of absurdity:

"What are you doing in my room at three in the morning?" I asked her once, waking to find her sitting on the edge of my bed, calmly sharpening her knives.

"Investigating a disturbance in Dionysus's field that is only detectable during the third phase of the gibbous moon when Mars is in conjunction with Saturn," she replied without missing a beat, as if it were the most obvious explanation in the world.

"In my room?"

"The epicenter is exactly two meters and thirty-seven centimeters from your pillow. It's pure coincidence."

On another occasion she appeared in my school cafeteria in Manhattan, dressed in a school uniform that clearly didn't belong to her and thick-framed glasses she didn't need.

"Diana? What are you doing here?" I asked, choking on my sandwich.

"I'm an exchange student," she declared with complete seriousness, while the other students stared at her open-mouthed. It was no wonder: with her snow-white hair and predator posture, she stood out among the teenagers like a wolf among lambs. "I study... uh... hunting sciences."

"That's not a real subject."

"Of course it is. It's a new specialty. Very experimental. Super exclusive." She sat beside me, stealing one of my french fries. "I'm also here for research on... urban meteorological patterns affecting silver woodpecker migration."

"Silver woodpeckers don't exist."

"Exactly. That's what makes the research so complicated."

Paul, my stepfather, almost had a heart attack when he found her in our living room one night, comfortably installed watching a documentary about wolves while eating blue cookies.

"She's a friend of Percy's from... camp," my mother explained with a smile that oscillated between amused and concerned.

"I'm his marine biology tutor," Diana added with complete seriousness. "Percy has difficulties identifying different species of... fish."

"The son of Poseidon needs tutoring about fish?" asked Paul, genuinely confused.

"It's a tragic irony," Diana sighed dramatically. "Like a son of Apollo who can't sing, or a son of Hephaestus who's allergic to metal."

Even during life-or-death missions, she maintained her commitment to her increasingly elaborate excuses. In the middle of a battle against telekhines in Atlantic City, she appeared out of nowhere to save me from being impaled.

"Diana!" I exclaimed, genuinely surprised and relieved. "What are you doing in New Jersey?"

She decapitated a telekhine before responding with absolute calm: "Studying the effect of slot machines on the migratory behavior of domestic manticores. It's fascinating, really. They've developed an addiction to blackjack."

"Manticores play blackjack?"

"Only the domestic ones. The wild ones prefer poker. Less mathematics."

What made it all even more hilarious was the absolute seriousness with which she presented these justifications. Not a blink, not a smile that would reveal she was joking. Nothing. As if she truly believed I could swallow that she had traveled two thousand kilometers to study "the refraction of moonlight on mermaid scales specifically between 2:17 and 2:19 in the morning during the winter solstice."

One night, while sharing a pizza on the roof of my mother's building (she had appeared with the excuse of "monitoring a gravitational anomaly that exclusively affects pepperoni pizzas in Manhattan"), I finally addressed the topic.

"You know you don't need to invent excuses to spend time with me, right?" I told her, observing how her eyes reflected the city lights. "You can simply say you wanted to see me."

Diana froze with the pizza halfway to her mouth. For a moment, she seemed genuinely disconcerted, as if the concept of emotional honesty was more terrifying than facing an army of giants.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she finally responded, too quickly to be convincing. "All my reasons are perfectly legitimate and necessary for my duties as a hu—"

"Diana," I interrupted her softly. "Yesterday you said you were here to verify if the earthworms in Central Park were planning an insurrection against the worms in Brooklyn."

"It's a valid concern," she insisted, although her lips trembled slightly, betraying a contained smile. "Manhattan worms are notoriously territorial."

I looked at her without saying anything, arching an eyebrow.

"Fine," she finally sighed, dropping her shoulders in a gesture of surrender. "Maybe, and I only say maybe, some of my justifications have been slightly... creative."

"Slightly?"

"Moderately."

"Diana."

"Fine, completely made up," she admitted, rolling her eyes. "Happy?"

"Almost," I smiled. "Why not simply tell the truth?"

She looked away, suddenly interested in the edges of her pizza slice. When she spoke, her voice had lost all trace of bravado.

"Because the truth is complicated," she said finally. "Because I'm not supposed to... I can't..."

"Can't what?" I pressed gently.

Her eyes found mine, and there was a vulnerability in them that she rarely let show.

"I can't want to be with you just because... I miss you when you're not around," she concluded in a low voice. "That would be admitting things that a hunter shouldn't feel."

The silence that followed was laden with meaning. Finally, I extended my hand over the blanket where we were sitting and covered hers.

"Well, if it's any consolation," I said, "I miss you too when you're not around. And I don't need to make up stories about worm insurrections to admit it."

Her smile then was small but real, illuminating her face in a way that made my heart skip a beat.

"Manhattan worms really are very haughty," she murmured, intertwining her fingers with mine.

"Of course they are," I nodded solemnly. "They have to deal with tourists all year round. That would make anyone bitter."

Her laughter, free and genuine, rose towards the stars, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, some truths were worth being told, no matter how complicated they were.

"You know?" I told her once, while we were recovering from a particularly intense battle against a group of hellhounds. "For someone who supposedly hates men, you spend a lot of time saving my butt."

"It's just that your butt needs a lot of saving, Jackson," she replied with that smile that made my brain momentarily melt. "Besides, who else is going to keep your ego in check?"

It was during that time that I noticed something strange: whenever Diana was around, the other hunters seemed to avoid her. It wasn't obvious; rather subtle sidelong glances, conversations that died down when she approached, a kind of fearful reverence that I didn't fully understand.

But if the hunters avoided Diana, she seemed to develop a particular aversion to any female being who came within three meters of me. At first they were subtle reactions: a sharp look, a more rigid posture, or that chilling silence that precedes storms. Over time, her jealousy became almost legendary among the campers.

The first time I clearly noticed this pattern was with Drew Tanaka, from the Aphrodite cabin. Drew had the habit of flirting with anything that moved and had a Y chromosome. One day, while I was training in the arena, she approached me, swaying with the excuse of needing "help" to properly hold her sword.

"Percy, darling," she purred with that sweet tone she used when she wanted something, "could you show me how it's done? I'm so clumsy with these things..."

Before I could respond, a silver arrow planted itself with millimetric precision between Drew's fingers that were holding the hilt of her sword. The daughter of Aphrodite shrieked, jumping back as if she had been electrocuted.

"Sorry," said Diana, appearing from the stands with her bow still in position. "My finger slipped. How clumsy of me."

Her smile had absolutely nothing apologetic about it. Drew looked at her as if she had just seen a gorgon.

"You are..." she began, but something in Diana's expression made her reconsider her words. "I was just leaving. I remembered I have a... manicure emergency."

She walked away so quickly she practically left a trail of designer perfume in the air.

"Was that necessary?" I asked, though I couldn't help a smile. "I think you've traumatized her."

Diana was examining her arrows with feigned innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about. I was simply practicing my aim."

"On a target between someone's fingers."

"Moving targets are more difficult," she shrugged. "Besides, I've heard fear is an excellent exfoliant. I've done her complexion a favor."

But Drew wasn't the only one. Katie Gardner, from the Demeter cabin, suffered a mysterious "shower" of pinecones every time she offered to help me with my small garden. Lacy, also from Aphrodite, discovered that her shampoo had been replaced with permanent blue dye the day after she asked me if I wanted to be her partner at the bonfire dance.

The boys at camp began to develop a sixth sense: they avoided getting close to me if they detected a certain silver glow in the vicinity. Even Connor Stoll, who wasn't exactly known for his self-preservation instinct, warned me in a low voice:

"Dude, your hunter friend is scary. Travis and I are betting that one day some girl will hug you and she'll turn her into a deer."

"Diana wouldn't do that," I replied, though without much conviction.

"Are you sure? Because the other day, Miranda leaned over to remove a piece of lint from your shoulder and swore she heard an animal growl in the bushes."

I decided to talk to her about it after a particularly notable incident with a lost tourist in Long Island. The poor girl had only asked me for directions to the main road, but her French accent and her tendency to touch my arm while speaking seemed to trigger some kind of internal alarm in Diana, who "casually" happened to be passing by.

"I can't believe you suggested that tourist was looking for something more than directions," I told her that night, when she appeared in my cabin.

"Did you see how she was looking at you?" Diana snorted, pacing like a caged tiger. "Like you were the last piece of cake at a birthday party. 'Oh, merci beaucoup, you are so kind,'" she mimicked with a French accent so exaggerated it seemed taken from a cheap comedy.

I couldn't contain my laughter. "Are you jealous of a girl who literally only asked me how to get to the highway?"

"Jealous? Me?" her voice went up an octave. "Please, Jackson. Gods don't feel jealous."

"We've already established that I'm not asking about the gods," I reminded her. "I'm asking about you."

Diana stopped, and for a moment she seemed truly vulnerable. Then, with a sigh, she sat down beside me on the bed.

"It's just that... these... mortals and demigoddesses," she began, each word seemed to cost her a physical effort, "don't understand what's at stake. They look at you and see a handsome boy with pretty eyes who's good with a sword. They haven't seen what I've seen."

"You think I have pretty eyes?" I smiled, earning an elbow in the ribs.

"That's not the point, idiot."

"What is the point then?"

She turned to look at me directly, and the intensity in her eyes left me breathless.

"The point is that I was there when you faced Cronos. When you carried the weight of the sky. When you emerged from Tartarus. I've seen you in your darkest moments and in your brightest triumphs." Her voice lowered to almost a whisper. "I know you, Percy Jackson. I really know you. And I can't bear the thought of some girl who doesn't understand who you really are trying to... claim you."

"Diana..." I began, not really knowing what to say to such a confession.

"Besides," she added quickly, recovering her usual sarcastic tone, "most of them are opportunistic sluts."

"Diana!"

"What? It's true. That daughter of Aphrodite, Drew, has dated half the camp. And Katie Gardner? Please, everyone knows she has a collection of your photos hidden in her cabin."

"That... that can't be true," I stammered, genuinely surprised.

Diana rolled her eyes. "You're so obtuse sometimes. Half the girls in camp sigh when you pass by. It's pathetic."

"If it's any consolation," I said, gathering courage, "I only sigh for one girl, and she's not even technically a camp girl."

Her eyes opened a bit wider, and for a second I saw something almost vulnerable in them before her usual mask returned to its place.

"You better, Jackson," she replied with a smile that tried to be threatening but failed to completely conceal something softer. "Because if I see you flirting with any of those... I'll turn you into a jackalope so fast you won't even have time to say 'oh, shi-'"

I interrupted her with a laugh, and after a moment, she joined in. And so, with that strange declaration half threat, half confession, we established a new understanding between us. One that neither of us dared to name, but that we both recognized.

When I asked Thalia about it, she frowned, confused.

"Diana? I don't know any hunter by that name."

"White hair like snow, changing eyes, smile that looks like she's planning your death but in a fun way..." I described, incredulous at her lack of recognition.

Thalia shook her head, increasingly perplexed. "Percy, I know all the hunters. There is no Diana among us."

Before I could insist, a crash shook the camp. Another attack. The conversation was forgotten amid the subsequent chaos, but it planted the first seed of doubt in my mind.

That night, when Diana appeared next to my improvised campfire at the edge of camp, I looked at her with new eyes.

"Who are you really?" I asked without preamble.

She arched an eyebrow, but for a moment, a flash of something—alarm? nervousness?—crossed her face before her usual mocking mask returned to its place.

"Well, Jackson, I thought we had already gotten past introductions. I'm Diana, remember? The one who prevents you from getting killed every other day."

"Thalia says there's no hunter named Diana," I insisted, not letting her sarcasm distract me.

Diana tensed almost imperceptibly. Then, with a sigh, she sat beside me, so close that our shoulders almost touched.

"The hunters are many, Percy," she finally responded, her voice softer, almost intimate. "Some come and go. Others... prefer to remain in the shadows. Not all of us serve Artemis in the same way."

There was something in her tone, a half-truth, that made me suspect she wasn't telling me the whole story. But before I could press further, she skillfully changed the subject.

"Besides, since when do you listen to Thalia? The same girl who thought it was a good idea to charge against an army of living dead armed only with a shield and a problematic attitude."

I couldn't help but laugh, and the moment of tension dissipated. But the doubt remained planted, slowly germinating in a corner of my mind.

We developed a strange routine. We would meet in random places: Montauk beach, the Empire State Building, even once in a McDonald's at three in the morning. We shared hamburgers and conversations that lasted until dawn. I teased her about her obsession with silver arches (both McDonald's and hunting ones), she laughed at my inability to walk in a straight line without tripping over something mythological.

But the strangest thing began one stormy night. I had fallen asleep listening to the rain hit the roof of cabin 3, the familiar sound of water always calmed me. I don't know how much time passed, but I woke up slightly, in that state between sleep and wakefulness, and felt a presence. There was someone sitting on the edge of my bed.

Instead of being alarmed, my sleepy brain recognized a familiar scent: forest after rain, moonlight, and something indescribably silver, if colors can have a scent.

"Diana?" I murmured, without fully opening my eyes.

"Shhh," she whispered, and I felt her cold fingers brushing a lock of hair from my forehead. "Keep sleeping, Jackson."

It should have seemed strange, even invasive, but at that moment it felt... right. As if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be there, watching over my sleep. I don't remember if I said anything else before falling back asleep.

The next morning, I convinced myself it had been a dream. Artemis's hunters don't sneak into boys' cabins in the middle of the night to watch them sleep. That would be ridiculous, right?

But then it began to happen more frequently. Sometimes, in that haze between sleep and consciousness, I felt her sitting on the edge of my bed. Other times, I simply perceived her presence in the room, as if she were standing guard. On some occasions, when nightmares about the Labyrinth or Cronos tormented me, I would wake up startled only to feel a cool hand on my forehead and her voice whispering reassuring words in a language I didn't recognize but that, somehow, I understood.

One particularly cold night, without being fully conscious of what I was doing, I extended my arm and pulled her towards me, mumbling something incoherent about how she also needed to rest. To my surprise, instead of turning me into a human pincushion for my boldness, I felt her tense briefly before relaxing and settling beside me, on top of the blankets.

"If anyone finds out about this, Jackson, I swear I'll turn you into wolf food," she whispered, but made no attempt to move away.

"Your secret is safe with me," I replied, already more asleep than awake. "I won't tell anyone that the fearsome hunter is afraid of the cold."

Her soft laughter was the last thing I heard before falling back into a deep sleep, the best I had had in months.

It became a kind of secret routine. I pretended not to notice when she slipped through the window on the darkest nights, and she pretended she only came to make sure I hadn't choked on my own drool. Sometimes we talked in whispers until one of us fell asleep. Other times, we simply enjoyed the shared silence, a small oasis of peace in our chaotic lives.

In the mornings, she always left before dawn, leaving only a slight depression in the mattress and her scent on my pillows as proof that it hadn't been a dream.

"You know? For a son of Poseidon, you're not so bad," she told me one night, while we shared a loaf of blue bread my mother had sent us.

"And for an immortal hunter, you're not so... intimidating?" I replied, earning a punch in the shoulder that would definitely leave a mark.

"I can be very intimidating when I want to be, Jackson. Don't forget it."

"Oh, believe me, it's hard to forget someone who almost decapitated me with a butter knife."

"It was a hunting knife, and I barely grazed you."

"I have a scar!"

"Big babies cry too, huh?"

It was during this time that I began to notice my favorite t-shirts mysteriously disappearing. At first I blamed the cleaning harpies—those feathered demons have a worrying tendency to confuse "laundry" with "all-you-can-eat buffet"—but then, during one of our nightly encounters, I noticed something familiar under Diana's silver jacket.

"Is that my Knicks t-shirt?" I asked, squinting in the dimness of my cabin.

Diana tensed like a cat caught stealing food. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's my favorite t-shirt," I insisted. "The one with number 3 on the back. It's been missing for a week."

For the first time since I'd known her, I saw Diana Jackson—monster hunter, companion of the goddess Artemis, terror of everything that crawls in the night—blush. It was so unexpected, so... adorable, that I was momentarily speechless.

"It's possible," she finally admitted, lifting her chin with that divine pride that appeared when she felt vulnerable, "that I borrowed it."

"Borrowed?" I repeated, fighting against the smile that threatened to spread across my face.

"Yes, borrowed," she snapped, crossing her arms. "It was cold and I needed something to... keep me warm."

"In the middle of July."

"It gets cold at night."

"And I suppose my Camp Half-Blood sweatshirt, my two long-sleeve shirts, and that blue sweater my mom knitted for me for Christmas also keep you warm on these frigid summer nights."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you accusing me of something, Jackson?"

I raised my hands in surrender, but couldn't contain my smile. "I'm just wondering why an immortal hunter would need to steal clothes from a simple mortal. Especially clothes that, in your own words, 'smell like a cyclops used socks as air freshener.'"

Diana turned away, clearly uncomfortable. "The smell... helps," she murmured so softly I almost didn't hear her.

"Helps with what?"

She turned again, and there was something new in her eyes, something vulnerable and fierce at the same time. "To remember you, idiot. When you're not around, when I'm with the hunters for weeks at a time... it helps me remember you're real."

The sincerity in her voice left me breathless. Before I could respond, she approached with that inhuman speed of hers and placed a finger on my lips.

"If you ever mention this, I'll deny having said it and then kill you. Slowly and painfully."

"Your secret is safe with me," I replied against her finger, catching her hand in mine. "Besides, that sweater looks better on you than it does on me."

Her smile at that moment, a mixture of relief and something deeper that neither of us was ready to name, illuminated the cabin more than any Greek torch.

We never put a name to what we were doing. Dates? Friend outings? Casual encounters between a demigod and a mysterious hunter with a twisted sense of humor and a worrying tendency to appear exactly when I needed her most? We didn't know, or maybe we didn't want to know.

However, for the mortal world, it had a very clear name. I discovered this one Sunday afternoon in Manhattan, when Diana appeared out of nowhere while I was desperately trying to find a birthday present for my mother.

"Need help, Jackson?" she asked, materializing beside me in front of a gift shop window display. "Because you've been staring at the same vase for fifteen minutes with a face like you're solving quantum equations."

I sighed, grateful for the distraction. "My mom's birthday is tomorrow and I want to get her something special. I was thinking about that vase for her plants, but I'm not sure if..."

"It's horrible," Diana stated without mercy. "It looks like a drunk cyclops vomited it."

"Thanks for the delicate opinion."

"You're welcome," she smiled, taking my arm with a naturalness that surprised me. "Come on, I know a better place."

That's how we ended up spending the entire afternoon going from store to store, with Diana dragging me from one place to another with almost military determination. The most surprising thing wasn't her unexpected knowledge of Manhattan stores, but the way she seemed... relaxed. Without the permanent tension she showed at camp or during missions.

In a small secondhand bookstore, while Diana was meticulously examining a first edition of "The Secret Garden" that she knew my mother would love, an elderly woman who worked at the checkout smiled at us with that expression of tenderness that only grandmothers master.

"You make a beautiful couple," she commented, adjusting her glasses. "You remind me of my Harold and me when we were young. He used to look at me like he'd hung the moon in the sky too."

I opened my mouth to correct her, but Diana stepped on my foot with enough force to almost make me see the stars I had apparently hung for her.

"That's very kind, thank you," Diana replied with a sweetness I had never heard from her. "We've been together almost two years, haven't we, honey?"

I stared at her wide-eyed while she gave me a smile that promised a slow death if I didn't play along.

"Y-yes," I stammered. "The best year and... eleven months? of my life."

Diana narrowed her eyes imperceptibly before turning back to the elderly woman. "He's still learning to count. It's adorable, isn't it?"

The woman laughed delightedly while I forced a smile that probably made me look constipated.

Upon leaving the store with the perfectly wrapped book, I looked at Diana curiously. "What was that about?"

She shrugged, but there was a slight blush on her cheeks that gave her away. "It was easier than explaining to her that I'm an immortal hunter in the service of a virgin goddess and that you're a demigod with attention problems who gets into trouble every five minutes."

"Fair enough."

But it wasn't the only time. Throughout that afternoon, several mortals mistook us for a couple: the ice cream vendor who offered us the "special for lovers," a street photographer who insisted on taking a photo "to remember this special day," even a group of teenagers who whistled as we passed by.

And on each occasion, instead of correcting them or threatening to turn them into human pincushions (her usual response to impertinences), Diana simply... accepted it. More than that, she seemed to enjoy the role.

When I pointed this out while we shared a pretzel in Central Park, she looked at me with that indecipherable expression she reserved for moments when the conversation approached dangerous territory.

"It's simpler this way," she finally replied. "For mortals, it's what makes sense. A boy and a girl spending the day together."

"I guess," I conceded. Then, gathering courage, I added: "Although technically, you're not a normal 'girl,' you're a hunt—"

"Does it matter?" she interrupted me, and there was something in her voice, a vulnerability hidden beneath layers of fierceness, that made me stop. "Does it bother you? That they think... that?"

I looked at her then, really looked at her, with her changing eyes fixed on me, waiting for my answer as if something important depended on it. And I realized that for her, it did.

"No," I answered with absolute sincerity. "It doesn't bother me at all."

Her smile then was like the dawn: slow, beautiful, and full of promises. Without saying anything more, she linked her arm with mine and we continued our walk, enjoying that small piece of normalcy stolen from our chaotic immortal lives.

Sometimes, when the moonlight fell on her face in a certain way, I noticed something familiar in her features, something that reminded me of someone, but the thought vanished as quickly as it came. Diana had that ability: to make you forget your worries, your suspicions, everything except the present moment.

It was during my interactions with Rachel Elizabeth Dare when I first noticed Diana's jealous side. The red-haired mortal with clear sight had entered my life like a whirlwind of paint and cryptic predictions, and although our relationship was strictly platonic, Diana didn't seem convinced.

"So that's your new friend," she commented one afternoon, appearing out of nowhere while I waited for Rachel outside her private school. "Red-haired, artistic, and completely normal. How... conventional, Jackson."

"Are you spying on me?" I asked, more amused than annoyed.

"Strategic surveillance," she corrected, her eyes fixed on the school entrance. "There's a subtle but important difference."

"And what would that difference be?"

"That I say so," she replied with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Do you like her?"

The question took me by surprise, both for its content and its abrupt tone. Diana had never shown interest in my love life before, at least not directly.

"She's just a friend," I replied carefully, suddenly aware that we were entering unknown territory. "She can see through the Mist. It's useful."

"Right," her voice dripped with skepticism. "And I suppose the fact that she's pretty, has those adorable freckles and that fiery red hair has nothing to do with it."

I laughed; I couldn't help it. "Are you jealous?"

It was as if I had flipped a switch. Diana turned to me, her changing eyes now an amber so intense they seemed to burn.

"Jealous? Me? Of a mortal?" Her laugh was short and sharp like the edge of a knife. "Don't be ridiculous, Jackson. I'm just concerned that your taste in women is as bad as your technique with a sword."

"My technique has improved," I protested. "Thanks to you, in fact."

Something changed in her expression then, a flash of vulnerability quickly masked. "True. I'm an excellent teacher." She took a step closer, invading my personal space in a way that made my heart inexplicably race. "But there are lessons I haven't taught you yet, Jackson."

Before I could process what that meant exactly, Rachel appeared at the entrance, waving. When I turned to introduce Diana to her, she had already disappeared, leaving only a faint scent of forest and moonlight.

The incident with Rachel wasn't unique. Over time, I noticed that Diana developed an instant animosity toward any female figure who got too close to me, from overly friendly nymphs to newly arrived demigods at camp.

But it was my adventure on Calypso's island that really unleashed her divine fury.

When I finally returned to camp after my "death" in the explosion of Mount Saint Helens and my stay in Ogygia, I expected many things: questions, relief, maybe even some joke about my dramatic tendencies. What I didn't expect was Diana waiting for me on the beach, with a stormy expression that would have made Zeus think twice.

"Well, the dead has risen," she commented with a coldness that froze the blood. "How considerate of you to join us mortals again."

"Diana, I—"

"Two weeks, Jackson," she interrupted me, and for the first time since I'd known her, I detected real pain beneath her fury. "Two weeks in which everyone thought you were dead. In which they burned your shroud."

"It wasn't my intention—"

"Where were you?" she demanded, coming so close I could see the golden flecks in her amber eyes. "And don't you dare lie to me."

I swallowed. There was something in her tone that told me she already suspected the answer, but wanted to hear it from my lips.

"In Ogygia," I finally admitted. "With Calypso."

A sepulchral silence fell between us, broken only by the soft murmur of the waves. For an instant, I swore I saw a silver glow surround Diana, like a barely contained divine aura.

"Calypso," she repeated with a controlled voice. "The daughter of Atlas. The immortal seductress."

"It's not how it sounds," I hastened to clarify. "She's trapped there, alone. Her island is a prison."

"Oh, poor thing," the sarcasm in her voice could have cut diamonds. "Trapped in a tropical paradise with a handsome hero every few centuries. What a tragic existence."

I was as surprised by the venom in her words as by the fact that she considered me "handsome." Before I could process that, she continued:

"And I suppose she offered you to stay? Immortality, eternal love, blah, blah, blah?" Her hand closed instinctively on the hilt of her knife. "The same package she offers all her 'heroes.'"

"Yes, but—"

"But what, Percy?" It was the first time she used my first name, and somehow that made the conversation feel more intimate, more painful. "Why didn't you accept? A paradise island, a beautiful goddess in love, immortality... sounds like any man's dream."

There was a real question beneath her accusatory tone, a vulnerability I had never seen in her before. And suddenly I understood that her reaction wasn't simple anger: she was hurt. Hurt because I had disappeared, hurt because another woman had offered me to stay with her, perhaps even hurt because I had considered, if only for a moment, accepting Calypso's offer.

"I don't belong there," I answered honestly. "My life is here. My friends, my family..." I paused, gathering courage. "The people I care about are here."

Our eyes met, and for a moment, all the barriers between us seemed to vanish. We were no longer a demigod and a mysterious hunter, but simply Percy and Diana, two people caught in an attraction that neither of us fully understood.

The moment was interrupted by the sound of approaching voices. Diana blinked, as if waking from a trance, and stepped back.

"Well, I'm glad you decided to return, Jackson," she said, her tone returning to the usual mix of sarcasm and amusement, though now I detected something more, something deeper. "Someone has to make sure you don't die in a spectacularly stupid way."

"I thought that was your favorite hobby," I replied, trying to lighten the mood.

A reluctant smile curved her lips. "One of them," she conceded. Then, more seriously: "Don't disappear like that again, you hear me? Next time you decide to take a vacation on a paradise island with a goddess, at least leave me a note."

"So you can come rescue me?"

"So I can come kick your butt personally," she corrected, but her smile softened. "Though maybe I'd rescue you first. Probably."

When the prophecy was finally fulfilled and I had to make the most important decision of my life (literally and figuratively), it was the memory of her changing eyes that gave me the strength to do the right thing. And when I rejected the immortality offered by Zeus (because, let's be honest, an eternity listening to the gods argue about who has the shiniest throne isn't exactly my idea of fun), a part of me wondered what Diana would think.

I didn't have to wait long to find out.

"You're an idiot, Jackson," was the first thing she said to me when she found me on the beach of Camp Half-Blood that night, after the ceremony.

"Good to see you too," I replied, but I couldn't help smiling. There was something comforting in her familiar insult.

"You rejected immortality? Seriously?" She was genuinely indignant, her eyes shining with a fury I didn't fully understand. "Do you have any idea what many would give for that opportunity?"

"Including you?" I asked, and for the first time since I'd known her, Diana seemed to be at a loss for words.

She sat next to me in the sand, our shoulders almost touching. The silence between us was comfortable, full of unspoken words but understood nonetheless.

"Why did you do it?" she finally asked, her voice softer now.

I thought about all the reasons: my mother, my friends, the mortal world that, despite everything, was still my home. But as I looked at Diana, with the moonlight reflecting in her white hair and her changing eyes fixed on me, I realized there was another reason I hadn't acknowledged until now.

"I didn't want to live forever," I answered honestly. "Not like that. Not as one of them."

Diana nodded, as if she perfectly understood what I meant. And maybe she did.

"Besides," I added with a crooked smile, "who would save your butt if I were busy being immortal?"

She let out a laugh, the sound mixing with the rumble of the waves. "Oh, Jackson, you're incorrigible."

"It's part of my charm."

"Who says you have charm?"

"You will. Eventually."

We became something more than friends, though neither of us admitted it. We shared sunsets on the beach, sneaked out to see movies in the city, she even taught me archery once (though I was still terrible). It was like having a girlfriend without officially having a girlfriend, and I was so blind that I didn't even question why a hunter of Artemis spent so much time with a boy.

I should have noticed the signs. The way the other hunters avoided looking at her directly when she was with me. How sometimes, when I thought I wasn't watching her, her form seemed to subtly change, becoming more... divine. The way the forest animals followed her as if she were their natural leader.

But I guess when you're in love (because yes, I eventually had to admit that's what I felt), you're blind to many things.

And then came the day when Hera decided my life wasn't complicated enough and needed a bit more divine chaos. She kidnapped me, erased my memory, and sent me across the country to play "Swap the Demigod" with Camp Jupiter. All as part of her "brilliant" plan to unite Greeks and Romans.

Eight months. Eight months erased from my memory as if someone had run a giant eraser across my brain. What I didn't know until much later was how Diana reacted to my disappearance.

What I didn't know was that, while I was playing amnesiac tourist at Camp Jupiter, Diana was turning half the continent upside down looking for me.

She traveled the country from end to end, leaving a trail of pulverized monsters in her wake. Stories speak of a mysterious hunter who terrorized the underworld itself in search of answers. She threatened minor gods, interrogated nymphs and dryads, even infiltrated Olympus to look for clues about my whereabouts.

When she finally found me at Camp Jupiter, I didn't even recognize her. I was too busy dealing with talking wolves, distrustful Romans, and gorgons that refused to stay dead. Diana had to observe from the shadows while I stumbled through my new Roman life, forming new friendships, facing new enemies, all without remembering anything we had shared.

Her eyes, usually bright and mocking, were filled with a contained storm. She observed me from afar for days, unable to approach without raising suspicions, watching how I interacted with Hazel and Frank, how I led the mission to free Thanatos.

But it was my interaction with Reyna that finally made her act. The Roman praetor didn't hide her interest in me, and although I didn't reciprocate, I didn't openly reject her either, mainly because I had no clear memories of my previous life.

When she finally approached me, it was as if the world stopped for an instant.

"Hello, Percy," she had said, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Do you remember me?"

And I, being the idiot that I am, replied: "Should I?"

The air froze around us, and I swear I saw tears in her eyes before she blinked and they disappeared, replaced by a mask of indifference that almost convinced me.

"I guess not," she replied with forced lightness. "I'm Diana. A... friend."

"I'm sorry," I said, and I truly was. There was something about her that seemed painfully familiar, like a dream you can't remember upon waking. "I've lost my memory."

"I know," her voice was soft now, almost tender. "But that doesn't matter. You're alive. That's what counts."

And before I could say anything else, she turned around and disappeared into the crowd, leaving me with the feeling that I had just lost something incredibly important without even knowing it.

When she finally approached me at Camp Jupiter, it was as if the world stopped for an instant.

"Hello, Percy," she had said, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Do you remember me?"

And I, being the idiot that I am, replied: "Should I?"

The air froze around us, and I swear I saw tears in her eyes before she blinked and they disappeared, replaced by a mask of indifference that almost convinced me.

"I guess not," she replied with forced lightness. "I'm Diana. A... friend."

"I'm sorry," I said, and I truly was. There was something about her that seemed painfully familiar, like a dream you can't remember upon waking. "I've lost my memory."

"I know," her voice was soft now, almost tender. "But that doesn't matter. You're alive. That's what counts."

And before I could say anything else, she turned around and disappeared into the crowd, leaving me with the feeling that I had just lost something incredibly important without even knowing it.

What I didn't know until much later was that my amnesia had been an especially cruel torture for Diana. While I wandered confused through Camp Jupiter, trying to fit pieces of a puzzle whose final image I couldn't glimpse, she fought her own battle: seeing me every day, observing me from the shadows, knowing that for me she was a complete stranger.

According to what Hazel told me months later, a mysterious hunter—who didn't belong to the Amazons but dressed similarly—had been camping on the outskirts of Roman territory for weeks. She had been spotted occasionally, always observing the camp from a distance, always vanishing before they could approach.

"Reyna thought she might be a spy," Hazel told me. "She sent patrols to capture her, but it was like trying to catch the wind. Some swore they saw her in the hills at dusk, but when they got there, they only found footprints and occasionally..." she stopped, as if hesitating to continue.

"Occasionally what?" I pressed.

"Flowers," Hazel replied. "Small silver flowers that no one had seen before. They grew exactly where she had been."

Moonlace. The same flowers Calypso had given me years before, that only grew in moonlight. Diana must have planted them, perhaps as a sign for me, a reminder that my amnesiac memory failed to grasp.

But it wasn't until I recovered my memories, until I became fully "myself" again, that I understood the extent of her pain. In Rome, after our battle against the giants, we finally had a moment alone.

"What was it like?" I asked, as we observed the Tiber from a secluded hill. "Seeing me day after day without me recognizing you."

Diana looked away, her fingers absently playing with a silver arrow. "Like looking through glass. I could see you, but I couldn't... reach you."

"You should have told me who you were," I said softly. "Maybe it would have helped me recover my memories faster."

She shook her head, a sad smile curving her lips. "It didn't work that way, Percy. The memories had to come back by themselves, or they wouldn't really be yours." She paused, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. "Besides, I was afraid."

"You? Afraid?" I couldn't hide my surprise. Diana was many things—reckless, fierce, sometimes irritatingly arrogant—but I had never associated her with fear.

"Afraid that you would remember everything except me," she admitted, and the vulnerability in her voice hit me like a wave. "That everyone else would regain their place in your life, while I... simply disappeared."

Without thinking, I took her hand. She tensed for an instant, but didn't withdraw it.

"That never would have happened," I said with absolute certainty. "You're too memorable, Diana. Too important."

Her eyes found mine, and for a moment I saw reflected in them everything we had shared: adventures, laughs, fights, moments stolen under the stars. Everything I had temporarily forgotten but that was now back, as vivid as ever.

"Besides," I added, trying to lighten the mood, "who could forget someone who threatens to turn you into a human pincushion at least three times a week?"

Her laughter, though soft, was genuine, dissipating some of the melancholy that surrounded us.

"Four times, minimum," she corrected, recovering some of her usual sarcasm. "Don't underestimate my dedication to reminding you how clumsy you are."

"I would never dare."

In the days that followed, as we sailed on the Argo II toward Greece, Diana integrated into our strange crew of Greek and Roman demigods. Which turned out to be... interesting, to say the least.

Leo was absolutely terrified of her, especially after Diana "accidentally" shot an arrow that pinned his sleeve to the wall when he tried to flirt with her.

"It was a compliment!" Leo protested as I helped him free himself. "I only said her hair was pretty!"

"A piece of advice," I told him, yanking the arrow from the wall with some difficulty. "Don't compliment her appearance. Or her personality. Or basically don't talk to her unless absolutely necessary."

"Is she always so... intense?" he asked, rubbing his wrist with an expression that was part scared, part fascinated.

"No," I replied honestly. "Sometimes she's worse."

Piper, on the other hand, seemed intrigued by Diana. More than once I found them talking quietly, only to stop abruptly when I approached.

"What were you two talking about?" I casually asked Diana after one of these mysterious chats.

"Girl stuff," she replied evasively.

"You? Talking about 'girl stuff'?"

Diana rolled her eyes, but there was an amused gleam in them. "Daughters of Aphrodite can be surprisingly insightful on certain topics. Besides, I like her attitude. She's not like the others."

"What others?"

"You know, those Aphrodite daughters who think the world revolves around their perfect lipstick and their soap opera romances."

"Like Drew?"

Her expression darkened. "Exactly like Drew. If I see her near you again, I swear I'll—"

"Get jealous?" I suggested, earning a punch in the shoulder that would definitely leave a mark.

"I'm not jealous," she snapped, with too much vehemence to be credible. "I'm just... cautious. It's my duty to protect you from threats."

"And Drew Tanaka is a threat?"

"Her perfume is toxic, Jackson. Literally. I'm sure it violates at least three international conventions on chemical weapons."

I couldn't help laughing, which only intensified her glare. But there was something comforting in this familiarity, in returning to our usual exchanges after the nightmare of amnesia and separation.

It was Frank, however, who made the most disturbing observation. One afternoon, while Diana and I were training on deck (read: she was kicking my butt while I desperately tried to maintain my dignity), the son of Mars was watching us with a strangely thoughtful expression.

"There's something about her," he commented later, when we were alone. "Something... divine."

I almost choked on the water I was drinking. "What?"

Frank shrugged, uncomfortable under my surprised gaze. "It's just a feeling. The way she moves, how she talks sometimes... reminds me of someone, but I can't identify who."

"She's a hunter of Artemis," I automatically replied, repeating the explanation I had given everyone. "She's been with them for... a long time."

"Maybe," Frank conceded, though he didn't seem convinced. "But there's something more. I swear by Mars."

His words left me uneasy, stirring in my mind the same suspicions that occasionally assaulted me. Diana was different, she had always been. Her knowledge of historical events was too precise, her power too great for a simple hunter. The way the other hunters avoided her, how Artemis never seemed to notice her directly...

But before I could delve into those suspicions, we arrived at Epirus. And hell, literally, broke loose.

"Diana!" I shouted, and she stopped for a second, her eyes finding mine.

"Jackson!" she replied, a genuine smile lighting up her face for the first time since my disappearance. "About time you came back!"

We fought back to back, like in the old days, our movements perfectly synchronized as if we had rehearsed this deadly dance for years. When the battle ended and the giants were defeated (temporarily, because these guys never seem to stay dead), we found ourselves alone in a secluded corner of the Roman ruins.

"I remember you," I said without preamble. "Everything. Every moment."

Diana looked at me with a mixture of hope and caution, as if she feared this was some kind of cruel joke.

"Really? Because if this is a joke, Jackson, I swear by the River Styx I'll turn you into a human pincushion."

"Remember that time in Montauk, when you tried to teach me archery and I almost hit a tree... that was behind me?"

A slow smile spread across her face. "And then you said it was a new type of technique you were developing. 'Reverse shot,' you called it."

"Exactly," I smiled. "Or that time at McDonald's at three in the morning, when you ordered every burger on the menu just to test which was the best."

"The Quarter Pounder won, of course," she replied, and now she was smiling openly.

"Of course."

We looked at each other in silence for a moment, and suddenly all words seemed inadequate. So I did the only thing that made sense: I hugged her. And when she returned the hug with a force that almost broke my ribs, I knew that, somehow, everything would be alright.

The war continued, of course. The giants weren't going to give us a break just because I had recovered my memory and found my... well, what was Diana to me? Friend? Something more? I didn't know, but I was determined to find out.

During the battles that followed, our relationship deepened even more. We shared moments that, looking back, were clearly romantic, though neither of us dared to label them as such. Improvised picnics in the middle of missions, long conversations under the stars, training sessions that ended with us too close to each other...

Diana became increasingly protective, almost territorial. I saw her narrow her eyes when Reyna, the praetor of Camp Jupiter, talked to me for too long. I noticed how her hand tensed on her bow when Piper tried to use her charmspeak to calm me after a particularly bad nightmare.

"Are you jealous?" I asked her once, half-jokingly, after she almost glared daggers at a nymph who had been too friendly.

"Gods don't feel jealousy, Jackson," she replied with as much dignity as she could muster, which wasn't much considering she had marshmallow remains on her chin from our improvised campfire.

"I didn't ask about the gods," I said, cleaning the marshmallow with my thumb without thinking. "I asked about you."

Something changed in her eyes then, a flash of something deeper, more true than her usual façade of carefree hunter.

"Maybe," she finally admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "A little."

"A little?" I smiled, leaning closer. "You nearly tore that poor nymph's head off with your glare."

"She was too close," she murmured, not moving away. "Besides, did you see how she was looking at you? Like you were some kind of dessert."

"And that bothers you?" I asked, our faces now so close I could count the silver freckles on her nose.

"Yes," she replied simply. "It bothers me."

And then, as if she had said too much, she abruptly pulled away and stood up. "We should go back. The others will be worried."

I let her go, but we both knew something fundamental had changed between us.

But it was when Annabeth and I fell into Tartarus that Diana really lost control. While I was having an unsolicited "vacation" in hell with my best friend, Diana unleashed her fury on every monster that crossed her path. The hunters began to circulate stories about a mysterious archer who left trails of destruction wherever she went, hunting relentlessly, as if searching for something... or someone.

What I didn't know while I was fighting to survive in Tartarus was that Diana had temporarily abandoned the hunt to look for another entrance to the underworld, willing to enter the abyss itself to find me. Only the direct intervention of Artemis stopped her, reminding her that the living could not enter Tartarus voluntarily without catastrophic consequences.

The strangest thing was that, according to what they told me later, Artemis seemed not to recognize Diana, treating her like any other rebellious hunter instead of as... well, as what she really was.

When we finally emerged from Tartarus, emaciated but alive, Diana was there, waiting. And when she saw me, she did something I'll never forget: she ran towards me, ignoring everyone else, and hugged me as if her life depended on it.

"If you ever do something like that again," she whispered in my ear, her voice trembling, "I'll kill you myself, Jackson. I swear by the Styx."

"Glad to see you too," I replied, returning the hug with what little strength I had left. And despite the exhaustion, the trauma, the nightmares I knew would haunt me for years, in that moment I felt... at home.

The end of the war against the giants was brutal. Gaea wasn't exactly the type of grandmother who bakes you cookies, unless those cookies were made of poison and death. During a particularly fierce battle, when I was about to be turned into demigod puree by a giant, Diana appeared out of nowhere.

I saw her move with lethal grace, her bow singing a melody of destruction. For a moment, her aura shone with such intensity that I had to look away. When I looked back, she winked at me and disappeared into the shadows, only to reappear on the other side of the battlefield, saving Hazel from a group of cyclopes.

That's when I knew. I had fallen completely and irremediably in love with her. I, Percy Jackson, the demigod with the worst romantic track record since Paris of Troy, had fallen in love with a hunter of Artemis.

The way she wrinkled her nose when something displeased her, how her eyes sparkled with mischief before making some sarcastic comment, the way she always seemed to know exactly what to say to pull me out of my darkest moments. Everything about her seemed perfect to me, even her flaws: her stubbornness, her jealousy, her tendency to threaten me with physical violence when she was worried.

And then came the day of the reward after the war against the giants. The gods were on their thrones, ready to grant honors to the heroes, and I, being Percy Jackson, did something typically "Percy": I refused any special honor. I was too broken from Tartarus, too changed by everything I had experienced to think about more greatness or responsibility.

"I need time," I told Diana that night, on the beach of Camp Half-Blood. "Tartarus... changed something in me. I'm going to take a trip, see the world from another perspective, try to... heal, I guess."

"Let me come with you," she pleaded, and I had never seen such vulnerability in her eyes.

"I can't," I replied, feeling as if each word tore me apart inside. "This is a journey I need to make alone. But I'll come back. And when I do..." I smiled with that crooked smile she so hated to love, "I'll steal you from Artemis's hunt."

Her eyes shone with a mixture of amusement and challenge. "Is that a promise, Jackson?"

"It's a threat," I replied, and for the first time since Tartarus, I felt I could breathe again.

I left that night, leaving behind the only person who had managed to make my chaotic life make sense. I didn't know she was the Roman version of Artemis, nor that our love was possibly the most elaborate joke fate had ever played. I only knew that, for once in my life, I had something really worth coming back for.

Sometimes I wonder how everything would have been if I had known then that Diana was the Roman version of Artemis. If I had understood that I was falling in love with a goddess who had technically sworn eternal chastity, who existed in two different forms with distinct personalities, whose Greek half would probably turn me into a deer and hunt me if she discovered what her Roman counterpart felt for me.

Would anything have changed? Would I have stayed away? Or, being Percy Jackson, would I have jumped headfirst into the impossible, as always?

I want to believe it wouldn't have mattered. That what we built during those years—that deep trust, that mutual understanding, that wordless communication—was stronger than any divine complication.

Because at the end of the day, I didn't fall in love with a goddess. I fell in love with Diana. With her laugh that sounded like silver bells in the wind. With her fierce loyalty. With the way she arched an eyebrow when I said something particularly stupid. With how she could read me like an open book, anticipating my needs even before I recognized them myself.

I fell in love with someone who saw me—really saw me—not as the hero of the prophecy, not as the son of Poseidon, but simply as Percy. With all my flaws, my insecurities, my moments of doubt.

And perhaps that was always the true miracle: finding someone who knows you completely and loves you not despite your flaws, but with them. Someone who has seen the worst of you and still chooses to stay.

Fate has a twisted sense of humor, it's true. But sometimes, just sometimes, its jokes turn out to be exactly what we need.

And as I walked away from camp that night, with a heavy but determined heart, I couldn't help smiling. Because I knew this wasn't a goodbye, but the beginning of something new. Something not even the gods could predict.

After all, what is life without a little chaos? And if there's one thing Percy Jackson is an expert at, it's creating chaos in divine plans.

What I didn't know then was that my greatest act of chaos was yet to come: falling in love with a goddess who didn't even know she had fallen in love with me.

But that, my friends, is a story for another day.

END?