ARC 0: RED THREAD OF DESTINY

Diana's Point of View, Roman Goddess of the Moon

They say destiny is an immutable tapestry, woven by three implacable old women. Three Fates before a cosmic loom, manipulating the threads of our lives with wrinkled fingers that never hesitate.

What nonsense.

This comes from someone who has lived long enough to know that destiny is as immutable as I am patient. That is, absolutely not at all.

My name is Diana. Or at least, that's what I call myself when I'm in this... form. This body. This half of my existence that shouldn't even be self-aware.

After all, how do you explain that the Roman version of a Greek goddess develops an independent personality? That she feels different emotions? That she can make decisions that would make her Greek counterpart writhe in horror?

Artemis would never understand. Technically, we are the same entity. One soul, divided into two consciousnesses since Rome decided that the Greeks had gods worth... borrowing.

For millennia, I have existed as a shadow. The hunter in the shadows of the hunter. The moon reflected in a puddle while the true satellite shines in the sky.

I've seen empires rise and crumble. I've shot silver arrows in battles forgotten by mortals. I've guided huntresses whose dust mixed with the earth centuries ago.

And during all that time, I never knew I was waiting for something.

Until I saw him.

Percy Jackson.

Just another demigod. Just another walking problem. The son of Poseidon with that irritating tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and somehow turn that disaster into an improbable victory.

The first time I saw him was during that mission to rescue my Greek counterpart and the daughter of Athena. He was only fourteen, all arms and legs too long for his body, with that perpetual look of confusion mixed with stubborn determination.

"Men," Artemis (myself, but not me) had said with her characteristic coldness, "always so impulsive."

And he, the idiot, had responded with an eloquent:

"Uh..."

I watched him from the shadows as Artemis rolled her eyes, and something strange happened. Something that in three thousand years of existence I had never experienced.

He amused me.

No, more than that. He intrigued me. This gangly boy, with his too-big sword and his eyes that changed from green to blue depending on the light, like the sea at different times of day.

So I did something unprecedented: I separated from the main group of huntresses and took independent physical form. An ability I had developed over the centuries, but rarely used. What for? Existence is monotonous when you've seen it all.

That night I approached him while he stood guard, shivering from cold and obviously fighting against sleep.

"Who's there?" he asked, trying to sound threatening. His voice broke on the last syllable.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Then I emerged from the snow-covered trees, allowing him to see me: hair white as snow, changing eyes, the silver uniform of the huntresses.

"So you're the famous Percy Jackson," I said, studying him like a scientist would study a particularly fascinating specimen. "The boy who makes gods angry as a hobby."

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

And I laughed. A genuine laugh, surprising myself.

"I'm Diana," I introduced myself, extending a hand. "And I think we'll be good friends."

I had no idea how prophetic that casual comment would turn out to be, nor how it would change everything for me. For us.

You see, when you're immortal, patterns become evident. Heroes come and go, each generation with their own apocalyptic problems. After a while, they become interchangeable.

But he... Percy Jackson was different.

It wasn't just his absolute loyalty, though that already set him apart from the rest. It wasn't his irritating propensity to make jokes in the most inappropriate situations, though I must admit some of them drew smiles from me.

It was something more fundamental. Something in the way he saw the world: as a place that, despite all its horrors, deserved to be saved. Not for glory. Not for reward. But because it was the right thing to do.

I started seeking him out more frequently. First with elaborate excuses:

"Comparative study of lunar fungi that grow exclusively near marine demigods."

"Topographical research for future ambushes of particularly stupid monsters."

"Cataloging of suicidal water nymphs who get too close to children of Poseidon."

Over time, I stopped bothering with excuses. I would simply appear, and he stopped questioning it. As if it were the most natural thing in the world for an immortal huntress to materialize at his window at three in the morning to discuss the strategic validity of using rubber ducks as a distraction against aquatic monsters.

What I didn't admit then, not even to myself, was the terrifying truth: every moment away from him was beginning to feel like wasted time.

How to explain it? It's as if my entire previous existence had been in black and white, and suddenly someone had turned a cosmic dial and everything was in color. Vibrant, intense, sometimes painfully bright.

Terrifying.

For someone who has existed as a constant for millennia, change is... disturbing. And what I felt for Percy was the most radical change possible.

Human emotions are messy. Contradictory. One week after deciding that I definitely hated him for being so irritatingly carefree, I found myself contemplating the exact curve of his smile while he slept, wondering what it would be like to trace it with my fingers.

Pathetic, I know.

The most ironic thing is that all this time, Artemis—my other half—continued with her existence, oblivious to my internal torment. While she proclaimed her eternal aversion to men, I imagined how Percy would react if I ever dared to kiss him.

Believe me, the cosmic irony didn't escape me.

"Why do you keep coming?" he asked me one night, as we lay side by side staring at the ceiling of his room in the Poseidon cabin.

By then, our nightly encounters had become routine. I would appear, he would feign surprise (each time worse), we would argue about something trivial, and eventually we would fall asleep, carefully separated by at least five centimeters of space that somehow seemed more insurmountable than Tartarus itself.

The question took me by surprise. As a goddess, I'm not used to being questioned. As Diana, I wasn't used to questioning myself.

"Because when I'm here," I finally replied, hating the vulnerability in my voice, "I can be myself. No masks. No expectations. Just... Diana."

"And who is Diana, really?"

A seemingly simple question. An impossible answer.

I am what Artemis would never allow herself to be. I am freedom within millennial restrictions. I am divine contradiction.

"That, Percy Jackson, is the question of the millennia."

I couldn't tell him the truth. That I was the Roman version of the goddess who had sworn eternal chastity. That every moment with him was technically a betrayal of my own vows, though those vows had been made by a version of myself who considered romantic love a prison.

The paradox of my existence would have been comical if it weren't so painfully complicated.

Oh, and speaking of complications, let me tell you about jealousy.

Never, in three millennia of existence, had I experienced that particular emotion. Jealousy is for mortals. For beings with limited time who fear losing what is theirs.

And yet, there I was, the great Diana, practically fuming at the ears because Percy had been in Ogygia with Calypso.

"Damn you, Hera!" I shouted at the sky when I found out, the clouds twisting in response to my divine fury. "Why do you always have to meddle?!"

What if a nearby hare spontaneously turned into a cactus due to my tantrum? I prefer not to comment on that.

When Percy returned, I tried to act with indifference. You know, like the millennial and mature goddess I'm supposed to be.

"Well, the dead has been resurrected," I commented with an icy voice. "How considerate of you to rejoin us, mortals."

"Diana, I-"

"Two weeks, Jackson," I interrupted him, and I hated that my voice revealed so much. "Two weeks in which everyone gave you up for dead."

"It wasn't my intention-"

"Where were you?"

"In Ogygia," he admitted. "With Calypso."

The silence that followed could have frozen the Styx.

"Calypso," I repeated, savoring the name like a particularly unpleasant poison. "The daughter of Atlas. The immortal seductress."

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

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

I saw him blink, slowly processing my reaction. Percy can be dense as concrete sometimes, but even he could recognize jealousy when it practically slapped him in the face.

"And I suppose she offered you to stay? Immortality, eternal love, blah, blah, blah?"

"Yes, but-"

"But what, Percy?" It was the first time I used his first name, and something changed in the air between us. "Why didn't you accept? A paradise island, a beautiful goddess in love, immortality... sounds like any man's dream."

He looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw the exact moment when he understood. Not just that I was jealous, but why I was.

"I don't belong there," he answered with a sincerity that made something twist inside my chest. "My life is here. My friends, my family..." he paused, as if gathering courage. "The people I care about are here."

Our eyes met, and for a moment, all the barriers between us—god and demigod, huntress and hero, immortal and mortal—seemed to vanish. We were just Diana and Percy, two souls in a universe too complicated.

It was terrifying. It was perfect.

Our first almost-date was on Halloween. I appeared at his window with "Corpse Bride" costumes and a determination that would have scared Ares.

"We're going to dress up," I announced, leaving no room for discussion.

"Excuse me?"

"Halloween, Jackson. Costumes. It's a fairly simple concept. Even for you."

"Why would you want to celebrate Halloween? You literally spend your life hunting creatures scarier than any costume."

I rolled my eyes with exaggerated patience. "Precisely because of that. It's fun to see how mortals try to be scary when they have no idea what really lurks in the darkness."

The truth, which I would never admit, was much simpler and more embarrassing: I wanted to experience something normal. Something that mortal couples do. The word "couple" fluttered in my mind like a terrifying butterfly that I didn't dare examine too closely.

That night, as we roamed the streets of Manhattan as Victor and Emily, I experienced another first: the feeling of being simply a normal girl, on a normal date, with a boy who made me feel anything but normal.

"Is this a date?" I asked when he mentioned it casually, as if it weren't the most revolutionary thing in the universe.

"Matching costumes, night walk, we shared a giant pretzel... Sounds pretty much like a date to me."

"Huh," I said, pretending the idea had just occurred to me, as if I hadn't meticulously planned every second of this night. "I suppose technically it could be considered a date."

"Technically?"

"Well, it's not like you formally invited me. I showed up at your window with costumes and basically forced you."

"Diana," he said, stopping to look at me directly, "are you telling me that you wanted me to ask you out? The immortal huntress wanted a formal invitation from a 'pathetic mortal,' as you so affectionately call me?"

A treacherous blush warmed my cheeks. I, who had impassively contemplated the rise and fall of civilizations, was blushing like a mortal schoolgirl.

Pathetic.

Charming.

Terrifying.

By the time Hera decided to kidnap Percy and erase his memories (that... better not say it, Zeus would strike me down), what we had had evolved to a point that neither of us openly admitted.

We shared a bed regularly "just to sleep." I would appear at his window several nights a week, sometimes after some improvised adventure, other times simply because the alternative—not seeing him—had become unbearable.

His mother treated me like her son's official girlfriend. His little sister Estelle called me "silver sister" with absolute adoration in her eyes.

And I, who had sworn eternal chastity (well, technically Artemis had sworn it, but you know how this divine duality works), found myself thinking more and more about what it would be like to really kiss him. Not the chaste kisses we occasionally exchanged, but something more... significant.

When he disappeared, when I learned that Hera had manipulated him and sent him to the Romans without his memories, I experienced an emotion I had never felt with such intensity: pure and absolute fear.

Not for myself, but for him. For us. For everything we had built and that was now in danger.

I tracked every clue, threatened every creature that might know something, even briefly considered kidnapping Hera and blackmailing her (which would have been catastrophic and probably suicidal, but love makes you stupid, apparently).

When I finally found him at Camp Jupiter, wearing a purple toga and leading Roman legions as if he had been born for it, my heart did something strange. It swelled with pride and contracted with pain simultaneously.

He was so close and yet, when our paths crossed, his eyes passed over me without any recognition.

"Who are you?" he asked, with the same distrust he would show any stranger.

"Diana," I replied, my name never sounding so hollow. "A huntress of Artemis."

Nothing. Not a glimmer of recognition. Just confusion and the natural caution of a demigod facing a potential threat.

I watched him unconsciously bring his hand to the silver arrow pendant that, miraculously, he still wore around his neck. My gift, my protection, my silent promise.

"Where did you get that?" I asked, pointing to the pendant, a thread of hope forming.

"I don't know," he admitted, and there was frustration in his voice. "I had it when I woke up with no memories. I've tried to take it off, but... it feels wrong. As if I were betraying someone important."

At that moment, despite the stabbing pain of not being remembered, I felt a spark of hope. They could steal his memories, but not the feelings we had built. Those were too deeply rooted, even for a goddess's manipulation.

"Did you know," Percy asked me once, long before all this, "that in some Eastern cultures they believe that people destined to meet are connected by an invisible red thread? No matter the time, distance, or circumstances, the thread can stretch or tangle, but never break."

We were on the roof of his building, contemplating a rare starry night in Manhattan. I had shown up with pizza and a ridiculous excuse about "studying constellation patterns from specific urban perspectives."

"Sounds like mortal nonsense," I replied, though something inside me resonated with the idea.

Percy smiled, that crooked smile that made something stir in my immortal chest. "Maybe. Or maybe it explains why, of all the demigods in all the camps in all times, you decided to specifically torment me."

"Don't get your hopes up, Jackson," I replied, stealing a slice of his pizza. "You're simply the most entertaining disaster currently available."

His laugh was warm like the summer sun. "Admit it, huntress. We are bound by fate."

"Fate," I replied with feigned disdain, "has a twisted sense of humor."

I had no idea then how true those words would turn out to be, nor of all the obstacles that fate would put in our path: divine amnesia, Tartarus itself, millennial secrets, and the fundamental paradox of my own existence.

But that's the funny thing about red threads of fate, isn't it? No matter how tangled they get, they always lead back to where they belong.

Even if it takes millennia of solitude, a divided identity, and an irritatingly brave demigod with a tendency to get into impossible troubles.

After all, as I said at the beginning: I didn't know I was waiting until the day I saw him.

Percy Jackson, my red thread.

My destiny.

My impossible, glorious disaster.

Perseus Jackson's Point of View, Son of Poseidon

My life has never been what you'd call "normal." From discovering that my father is a god to fighting titans and giants, my definition of "normality" has been quite flexible. But even with that, Diana is in a category completely apart.

The first time I saw her, on that snowy night during the mission to rescue Annabeth, I felt something strange. It wasn't just that she was beautiful—though she was in a way that seemed to break some fundamental law of the universe. It was as if moonlight had decided to take human form, only more intense, more alive.

"So you're the famous Percy Jackson," she said with that mocking smile I would come to know so well. "The boy who makes gods angry as a hobby."

I tried to respond with something intelligent. I probably failed. It's hard to be eloquent when you feel like someone is looking straight through you, as if your thoughts were a movie screen for their personal entertainment.

Her eyes disconcerted me more than anything. They changed color constantly: silvery like ancient coins under direct light, amber with golden flashes in the shadows. Sometimes, when she was particularly excited or angry, they seemed to contain entire galaxies.

Not that I was obsessed with her eyes or anything. Just, you know, a detail I noticed. Casually. Repeatedly.

Diana was unlike anyone I had ever met before. The other huntresses of Artemis treated me with a mixture of disdain and indifference, as if I were a particularly unpleasant fungus that had had the audacity to grow in their path. Diana, on the other hand, seemed to find me genuinely... interesting. Like a scientific experiment with unexpected results.

"Your stance is wrong," she told me during our first improvised training session. "You're keeping your weight on the wrong foot and your arms are too tense. You'll be disarmed in two seconds if you continue like that."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I muttered.

"It's not my job to give you confidence, Jackson. It's my job to keep you alive, apparently." Her movements were so fluid it seemed gravity gave her a special discount. "Though the gods know why I bother."

During that first night, she disarmed me so many times I lost count. Each time I fell, she was there, with that smile between mocking and amused, extending a hand to help me up. Her fingers were surprisingly warm for someone who seemed made of moonlight.

"For a son of Poseidon, I expected more," she said, but there was no disappointment in her voice, just curiosity. "Where is all that fury of the sea the nymphs talk about?"

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

That drew a laugh from her. It was such a pure, genuine sound that for a moment I forgot the pain. I wanted to hear it again. I wanted to be the one who provoked that sound.

And so began what would become the strangest, most frustrating, and most wonderful relationship of my life.

Diana would appear without warning, always with some increasingly elaborate excuse. At first I thought it was her way of justifying the time she spent with me to the other huntresses or to Artemis herself.

"Migratory study of albino owls," she declared one afternoon, materializing beside me while I was on guard duty.

"Collection of lunar fungi for medicinal potions," she claimed another time, appearing out of nowhere while I was collecting water.

Over time, I realized it was more than that. It was her way of maintaining a certain emotional distance, as if she needed these little fictions to allow herself to be near me. As if being with me was something she needed to justify, even to herself.

The strange thing is that I never saw her with the other huntresses. When I asked her about it, she simply shrugged.

"Let's say I have a... special assignment. Not all huntresses serve Artemis in the same way."

There were so many mysteries surrounding Diana, so many unanswered questions. But every time I tried to delve deeper, she changed the subject with the skill of someone who has perfected the art of evasion for centuries.

What she couldn't avoid was the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn't paying attention. A mixture of fascination, confusion, and something else, something I didn't dare to name because it seemed too impossible.

The first time I realized how beautiful Diana was—really realized it—was during a particularly quiet night at Camp Half-Blood. We had been training until late, and ended up sitting on the beach, contemplating the reflection of the moon on the water.

Diana was unusually quiet, with her knees pulled up against her chest, her eyes reflecting the silver glow of the ocean. The sea breeze played with her white hair, creating an ethereal halo around her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked without turning around.

I was startled. How did she know I was looking at her? "I wasn't looking at you."

"Jackson, I've hunted prey for longer than you can imagine. I can feel a gaze from a kilometer away."

Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. "I was just thinking."

"About what?" she insisted, now turning to face me. The moonlight accentuated the angles of her face, giving her an almost unreal appearance. Like a living sculpture carved in marble and silver.

"That you look... different under the moonlight," I admitted, immediately feeling stupid.

A slow smile curved her lips. "Different how?"

"More..." I searched for the right word, "you. As if in the darkness you could be more authentic."

Her eyes widened slightly, surprised. For a moment, the mocking mask fell, and I saw something vulnerable, almost fearful.

"You're surprisingly perceptive sometimes, Percy," she said quietly, using my first name, something rare for her. "It's disconcerting."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Do that," she replied, looking back at the ocean. "I don't hand them out often."

We stayed silent for a while longer, and that's when reality hit me like a tidal wave: Diana wasn't just beautiful in a superficial sense. She was beautiful in a way that seemed to hurt, like looking directly at the sun. Beautiful in a way that made the world around her seem more alive, more colorful, more intense.

She was terrifying in her perfection. And I was falling for her, irremediably and irreversibly, like a comet caught in the orbit of a star.

The nights that Diana began to spend in my apartment or in my cabin were the beginning of a new form of torment.

The first time was almost accidental. She had appeared at my window at midnight, soaked by a sudden storm.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, jumping out of bed.

"Clearly, I'm enjoying a bath in the rain," she responded sarcastically, taking off her soaked jacket. "Do you have a towel, or would you prefer I flood your room?"

I handed her a towel and dry clothes, trying not to look while she dried her hair. I failed miserably. How could I not look? The water made her silver shirt cling to her body, outlining curves that the huntresses normally hid under loose tunics. Her wet hair looked whiter than ever, contrasting with the blush that the cold had left on her cheeks.

"It's late," I said, when she had finally dried off. "You can stay if you want."

She seemed surprised by the offer. "I have to get back to... the huntresses."

"At three in the morning? In the middle of this storm?"

"We're not afraid of bad weather, Jackson."

"I didn't say you were afraid," I replied. "Just that it would be stupid to go out in this weather when there's a perfectly good bed here."

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you suggesting I share your bed?"

"No!" I exclaimed, feeling the heat rise to my face. "I'll sleep on the couch, obviously. Unless her highness prefers to sleep on the couch, in which case—"

"The bed will be fine," she interrupted with an amused smile. "Don't worry, Jackson. I don't bite." She made a deliberate pause. "Unless you ask for it."

That night I barely slept, too aware that Diana was in my room, probably using my old t-shirt as pajamas. When I finally surrendered to sleep, I had confused dreams full of color-changing eyes and laughs that sounded like silver bells.

I woke at dawn to find her sitting in the armchair facing the couch, watching me.

"Gods!" I exclaimed, sitting up abruptly. "What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep," she replied simply. "You talk in your sleep. And you drool. It's adorably pathetic."

"Great. How long have you been sitting there?"

She shrugged. "A couple of hours."

"A couple of...? Diana, that's disturbing."

"It's fascinating," she corrected. "You mortals are so sensitive about your sleep habits."

The next times she stayed over, this strange ritual continued. I always found her watching me sleep, sometimes from a chair, other times sitting on the floor next to the couch.

One night, tired of waking up with her staring at me as if I were a particularly interesting experiment, I made space for her on the couch.

"Come here," I said. "The floor is cold."

Diana looked at me as if I had offered her to eat glass. "Excuse me?"

"If you're going to spend the night watching me sleep like a mythological stalker, at least do it comfortably."

To my surprise, after a moment of hesitation, she slipped under the blanket, maintaining a prudent distance between us.

From then on, without ever openly discussing it, we started sharing that space during the nights. Sometimes with centimeters carefully maintained between us, other times—when I was particularly tired or she seemed especially vulnerable—with our bodies meeting in the middle, my arm around her waist, her head in the hollow of my shoulder, like puzzle pieces that were always meant to fit together.

And in those moments, watching her doze (because Diana never seemed to sleep completely, as if a part of her was always alert), with the light of dawn filtering through the window and painting her hair in pink and golden hues, I thought there couldn't exist anything more beautiful in any world, mortal or divine.

How little I knew then about what fate had in store for us. About the separations, the amnesia, Tartarus itself. About promises under the moon and silver rings.

But even now, with everything that has happened, when I close my eyes, I see her like this: asleep next to me, with her brow slightly furrowed as if she were solving problems even in dreams, beautiful in a way that makes the world around her seem brighter simply by existing in it.

Diana. My impossible huntress. My personal miracle.

Author's Note

Hey guys, this will be a series. I already have it planned, going through the original books. But then, regarding Gaia's victory, I don't know what to do. I'll think about something. This would be the prologue to the story.

Forgive my English, I am not a native speaker nor do I live in an English-speaking country.