Chapter Text
Maria was desperately trying to outshoot Thalia at the archery range, but failing miserably. They were waiting for the Jackson-Chase family to arrive, the family was coming from Sally’s apartment, which wasn’t that far away, yet they somehow ended up being over an hour late so far. Maria frowned when Thalia’s arrow hit the bullseye again , she knocked her arrow and got into position. She focused on the target, pulling the string back just a bit further, took in a lungful of air, and released the arrow, breathing out as the arrow left the bow and herself in the dust. Maria watched as the arrow cut through the air, seeming to fly straight to the bullseye, until a gust of wind blew through the area, sending a chill down Maria’s spine and the arrow off course. The arrow buried itself into the wood with a quiet thunk, just outside of the bullseye. Maria cursed and turned to Thalia, who wore a triumphant grin.
“Again,” Maria ordered, a dark look on her face, it scared most everyone in her mortal school, but it didn’t have the same effect on the hunter.
“There there, Little di Angelo,” Thalia laughs, her bow already disappearing from her hand, and as she trudged through the snow to remove her arrows, “We can go again later, maybe you can get your dad to join us.”
“You sayin’ that I’m not good at archery?” Maria mumbled quietly in an attempt for nobody else to hear it, unfortunately not quite enough.
“No, but maybe somebody less skilled will help boost your ego,” Thalia sent a grin towards the younger girl before pulling out her last arrow and tossing it to the side with the rest of the bunch. Maria rolled her eyes and grunted as she pulled out her last arrow, placing the arrow in the quiver that was on her back, to be sharpened later.
“So, what would you like to do, oh magical Lieutenant of Artemis?” Maria asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice, catching up to the older girl, shouldering her bow in the process.
Thalia looked at her from the corner of her eye, shrugging unhelpfully, and they made their way to the cabin area naturally. They walk past a bunch of already sugar high campers, a group of 10-year-olds ran past, giggling and throwing snowballs at each other. The two girls passed the arena, coated in a dense layer of snow, the sound of swords clashing coming from inside. They finished their walk when they got to the Hades cabin, which was Maria and her parents’ temporary home for the holidays.
Maria entered the cabin, dragging Thalia in with her, despite the hunters’ numerous protests, insisting that she can’t leave her favorite hunter outside in the cold. Maria instantly relaxed when the warmth from the cabin seeped into her bones, washing the cold away. Maria removed her bow and arrows, placing them on the side of her bunk, and replaced the weapons with her sword.
“Ready?” Thalia asks, leaning lightly against the door, arms crossed, trying to look cool in her white windbreaker and jeans, it wasn’t working.
“Yeah, you decided what to do yet, O’Great one?” Maria mocked, heading back outside.
“Not really, we could try to start a snowball war,” Thalia said, a wicked smile on her face, bumping shoulders lightly with the girl.
“It’s-”
“THALIA!” a little girl screamed from behind them, the two girls spun, just in time for Thalia to catch the 4-year-old barreling directly into her. Annabeth followed close behind with a winter coat and a pair of gloves. Thalia let out a breath as the 4-year-old’s head hit her stomach, but picked up the little girl anyways, a big smile on her lips.
“Perfect, now we have this little bugger to help with the war,” Thalia laughs, tickling the girl’s clothed stomach, the little girl laughed, her green eyes sparkling with mirth, her black curls bouncing slightly.
“Sorry Thalia, she just gets so excited when she sees you, couldn’t even get her to put her coat on,” Annabeth laughed, helping the little girl put her coat and gloves on. Maria stood there, awkwardly, having not been noticed yet.
“It’s fine, now that we have little Silena on our side, we can’t lose!” Thalia says, bouncing Silena on her hip.
“Lose what?” Percy asked, finally catching up to his wife, Lucas followed closely behind.
“The snowball war, of course!” Thalia grins, Lucas gave Maria a small wave, smiling awkwardly, Maria laughed and gave the boy a big hug, not accepting a short wave for a greeting.
“Hey Percy, Annabeth!” Maria greeted them after letting go of their son, Lucas. They both respond with greetings of their own.
“What’s this about a snowball war?” Lucas asked.
“Thalia’s decided to go to war against the rest of the camp, I guess we’ve just become soldiers for her mini army,” Maria said, a small smirk forming.
“Looks like dad’s pretty taken to the idea,” Lucas laughed, they both watched as Percy grinned and nodded quickly. The group stops abruptly, Percy and Thalia turning on the two teenagers, mischievous grins on their faces.
“Alright here is the plan-” Thalia started.
“-We’re gonna attack the Apollo cabin first, they’re at archery now.”
“We’ll throw a bunch of snowball at them, distracting them while Annabeth rallies the Athena cabin-”
...
Maria let out a yelp as a snowball hit her in the back of the head, and some Aphrodite girl smiled at her innocently before scurrying back behind Ares lines.
“Stupid Aphrodite children,” Maria muttered while diving behind a snow pile, which Lucas had kindly constructed for them, “We’re being destroyed, Thalia!”
“I know, just one second,” Thalia’s voice came from behind one of the other snow piles littering the ground. The girl in question popped up from a pile 20 feet over and launched a bunch of snowballs at the Ares defense.
“You missed!” Lucas yelled, laughing as he added more snowballs to the ever-growing pile. He peeked his head over the snow pile, picked up a snowball, and rewound his arm, getting ready to throw. Then a flying chunk of snow hit his head just above his left eyebrow with enough force to have him toppling backward. He fell back into a soft pile of snow, the frozen water flying up around him and floating delicately down. The storm landed softly in his hair, a stark contrast compared to the midnight black hair he’d gotten from his father.
“What are you talking about Jackson Jr. those all hit,” Thalia’s delayed answer finally came, followed by heavy breathing.
“You’ve only been hitting Ares!” Lucas responded, grunting as he sat back up.
“That’s ’cause it’s only a distraction!” Malcolm yelled from behind another hill, that hill was probably big enough to hold the entire Athena cabin behind it, all planning attacks. Maria rolled her eyes, no one ever knew what they were planning until the attack had been launched.
“Percy, Now!” Annabeth yelled. Maria had given up on trying to find everybody’s positions.
The field went silent as a bunch of snow was moved from the ground to the air, it moved towards the opposing army until it was floating just above the Ares front line, which looked about ready to pee themselves. The silence of the field was interrupted when Percy yelled, ‘let it go’ at the top of his lungs. The snow came crashing down onto the terrified Ares campers, rendering the enemy’s front line, useless. A bunch of yells came from the other side complaining about how unfair it was to have a son of Poseidon on their side.
“On my count,” Maria whispered, looking into Lucas’s blueish-grey eyes, trying to communicate how she refused to be one-upped.
“We have enough?” Lucas asked, gathering all of the snowballs and pulling them close to him.
“This is going to be fun,” Maria laughed before thinking about the other side of the archery range, where the other army was hiding. She grabbed a hold of Lucas as darkness enveloped them, leaving them feeling even colder than before, it only took a second before the dark leaves, and they were huddled behind enemy lines. Lucas drops all of the snowballs, they hit the ground with a series of thuds, he looks like he’s about to puke.
“3.”
“2,” Maria gathered a few of the snowballs in her hands, Lucas following her lead.
“1!”
They throw the snowballs at the people hiding behind their own piles of snow, earning a bunch of yells and sounds of surprise from the campers.
“They’re behind us!” One of the snow-covered campers yelled.
“Damn Hades, children!” Another exclaimed.
Maria reaches down for another snowball but grabbed hold of nothing. She looks frantically at Lucas, whose eyes had grown big, aware of the onslaught of snow they’re about to experience. Maria grabbed his hand and yelled ‘run’ before they headed straight into enemy lines. They yelled nonsense loudly as they got pelted with snowballs, they got their chest covered in snow, and some even threw snow towards their feet in attempts to trip them.
Before they made it out of their punishment, the supper horn sounds, also known as the cease-fire horn, all of the hungry campers dropped the snowballs and started heading for supper, not wanting to be late, although a few threw a couple of snowballs at the two teens just because. Lucas and Maria were laughing when they found Thalia and their parents, along with a tiny Silena looking like a snowman. Silena had snow in her hair, which was sticking up in odd angles, and was attached to Percy’s leg, giggling like a madman and telling him how awesome his attack was.
“What happened to you guys?” Nico asked an eyebrow raised as he took in his daughter’s current state, which wasn’t much better than Silena’s.
“We went behind the front,” Maria shrugs, “They didn’t really like it.”
“She just had to one-up Percy,” Lucas jokingly mocked, he lightly punched her shoulder as Maria’s face turned red.
. . .
Lucas and Maria sat perched on top of Hera’s cabin, it was rough and hardly comfortable, if one of them were to fall down they would likely end up with a broken bone and rug burns. The wind kept blowing their clothes and hair around, and the roof still had a bit of snow on it, resulting in their clothes getting wet. The only reason they were up there was that they were still wide awake from the partying that was finally coming to an end. That, and everybody was still obnoxiously loud, the periodic loud laugh coming from the Zeus cabin had left them wondering. Being the curious teens they were, they scampered up the side of the Hera cabin and hid just out of view, listening to their parents and friends.
“-you’re one to talk, you guys’ first kiss was in a lake!” Thalia accused. The only reason the teens could hear the group of adults was because of how loud they were, it was a wonder that any of the kids could even get to sleep.
“That’s not true! She kissed me on my cheek when we were 13!” Percy said indignantly, although Maria was sure that everybody in the Zeus cabin already knew that.
“That’s not a real kiss kelp-head,” The teens could practically hear the eye-roll in Thalia’s voice. They kept talking although a bit quieter now, Leaving the teens unable to make out what the parents were talking about and if it was anything embarrassing. Maria was having trouble keeping her eyes open and was about ready to call it a night when the familiar twinkling of an iris message had her up again. Why would anyone be iris messaging their parents at 3 in the morning? She heard greetings and then something frantic on the other end, still not loud enough to be heard by the two campers.
Maria and Lucas looked at each other, Lucas shook his head, Maria laughed silently, Lucas is too much of a goody-two-shoes to do anything too wrong. Maria, with a quick push, slid noiselessly off the roof and landed softly in the snow below them, shivering violently when the cold touched her exposed ankles. She crept over to a window that was emitting a soft glow from the lights inside the cabin. She heard Lucas fall off the roof shortly after she reached the window, she spared him the embarrassment by not looking when she listened to his ungracefully curse and not saying anything when he brushed up against her and peered into the window with her.
“-ercy, Thalia, Nico, Will, I hope you had a good new year, I’m sorry, but I don’t bring good news,” Reyna greeted stoically, Frank was standing slightly behind her and Jason was on the other side, both wearing very sober expressions. The group had the Camp Jupiter shirts on, and Frank and Reyna had chitons over their clothes.
Maria frowned, nobody should be this serious on new years, there was a tension that hung in the air, everybody was sitting up straighter, and their smiles were nearly gone.
Lucas, sensing this urgently whispered to her, “I think we should leave, this seems a bit beyond us.” Maria shushed him, then focused her attention on the scene in front of her.
“What’s wrong?” Annabeth sighed, leaning more heavily into Percy, seeming to have aged years in a matter of seconds. Maria could see the child of Athena slump slightly as if she was carrying the world on her shoulders again.
“We have two girls who cursed at us in greek, said something about Zeus, I believe they belong to you,” Reyna announced, Jason and Frank fidgeted in the back, looking off to the side at somebody who they couldn’t see, they seemed to be unsure of why they were there.
“Do you know their names?” Thalia asked, sitting up straighter at the sight of the Praetor, recognizing and showing her respect to the leader of the other camp.
“One refused to talk, and the other followed her lead.”
“Can you describe them to us?” Percy questioned, rubbing his hand on his wife’s, back soothingly.
“They were both wearing silver shirts, camo pants, and a tan winter jacket tied around their waist. One was slightly taller about 5’8 and the other a few inches shorter with dark-” The message started to cut out, silence took over the room as they waited for Reyna to finish the description.
“Reyna you’re cutting out,” Annabeth said, her brow scrunching at the flickering image.
“-ease come to Camp Jupiter,” and with that, the massage faded away. Maria and Lucas exchanged a panicked but also slightly curious look, Maria’s eye sparkled with mischievousness, while Lucas’s eyes held fear and nervousness.
“Whatever your thinking-” Lucas whispered, already turning to leave, his hand on Maria’s arm. His voice was drowned out when the silent cabin turned into one of arguing
“We should go now ,” Thalia said after the minute of silence, already having gone through the pros and cons of going now versus going later, obviously going now won that internal debate.
“Think about this Thalia, it’s late, we’re tired, we should wait until the morning to make any rash decisions,” Annabeth quickly interrupted, stopping that thought before it could become action.
“If it wasn’t important, Reyna would’ve waited to call us, I think we should go now,” Percy argued, wincing as Annabeth glared at him for not being on her side, Lucas shifted next to Maria, uncomfortable with the situation.
“If she needed us there, she would have said it!” Annabeth protested, scowling and moving away from Percy slightly. Over the years, they’d grown to trust each other, but when they disagreed on something, it always hurt a bit on both sides, even more so on something that seemed so important. Maria, along with a lot of the people closest to the Jackson-Chase’s had witnessed the small fights that happened during the disagreements, they weren’t always pretty and resulted in the two adults sulking for a while.
“She did, she said ‘please come to Camp Jupiter-” Percy recounted, even taking up an impression of Reyna.
“She didn’t clarify when! She would have meant in the morning or tomorrow!”
“That’s because the Iris-Message cut out, which should already raise some red flags, I’m sure Reyna would rather we come early rather than late.”
“More of a reason to wait, maybe she’ll call us again? Or can we call her?” Annabeth protested, looking at Will and Nico for help, Maria’s parents just shrugged. Nico shoved his hand in his pocket, pulling a drachma out of his back pocket, he tossed it to Annabeth
“You owe me a drachma.”
Maria rolled her eyes, they had plenty, a bucket full in their apartment and in the Hades cabin, it turned out that Nico was a bit of a helicopter parent at times. The group fell into a silence as Percy created some Mist, and Annabeth tossed the coin though, the coin disappeared through the mist, and Annabeth cleared her throat, “Oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering.”
The image shimmered, a couple of colors cross the mist before it turns translucent, showing Nico and Will on the other side. Everyone in the cabin let out a string of curses, some more moderate than others. Thalia’s was the loudest and most vulgar, if Maria were to repeat any of the words Thalia had uttered, she would probably be grounded for life.
“Well, now we have to go!” Thalia exclaims, “Iris-Messaging isn’t working, at least between the two camps, last time that happened there was a war between gods!”
“What about our kids?” Will finally said, and it was the thing that Maria had been waiting for; it was the reason that they would stay the night. Maria could almost see the impact of her fathers’ words sink into the parent’s minds. The decision was already made, they would wait for the morning. Thalia knew it, Maria could see it on her face, Thalia frowned, not wanting to wait.
“Fine, you guys can stay, I’m leaving,” Thalia said, getting up from her spot on the bunk, already throwing her stuff in her bag before somebody was finally roused from their shock.
“Thalia, come on, just wait for a bit, you can’t run across the country overnight,” Annabeth reasoned.
“Yeah, I’ll shadow travel us all there in the morning, it’ll be less exhausting than running all night, we’d probably even beat you,” Nico added, even thinking about running that far exhausted him. Will glared at his husband, causing Maria to stifle a laugh, Lucas shoved her lightly, mockingly pressing his finger to his lips.
“Yeah right, I’m going, I can’t wait that long, I’ll never get to sleep,” Thalia muttered sarcastically, slipping a silver Camp Half-Blood sweatshirt over her tank-top.
More people looked ready to protest, but glares from both Percy and Thalia shut them up.
“Try calling Artemis to tell her what you’re up to and don’t get run yourself to the brink of exhaustion,” Percy reminded, just glad somebody was going.
Thalia sends him a smile, “Of course Kelp Head, don’t want to anger the gods.”
Lucas and Maria ducked quickly when Thalia turned, eyes skimming over the window where the two twins were watching, swearing she’d seen something. Maria and Lucas hid while their parents bid each other goodbye. The two teens breath mingled, heads pushed together and observing each other.
The door to the cabin slammed open, and a couple of people marched out, shoes crunched against the snow, and multiple yawns came from the group, telling Maria both the Di Angelos and Jackson-Chase’s had left the cabin, which confirmed when the Poseidon cabins door opened and closed while Will and Nico continued to their temporary home. Maria slowly stood back up, peering back into the window and finding that Thalia had switched her pants from sweats to jeans, but hadn’t finished the swap. Maria blushed and averted her gaze, waiting for her friend to finish, pushing Lucas’ head down to maintain some of Thalia’s privacy, Lucas gave a surprised grunt but stayed down anyway.
Maria snuck a cautious gaze towards the cabin again, glad to find Thalia slipping on her windbreaker and lacing up her boots. The demigods watched as she finished gathering her stuff and shoved them in the backpack. The entire process was neat and very contrasting to Thalia’s personality. Thalia finally left the cabin a couple of minutes later, the lights turned off in the cabin as she left, leaving the camp dark aside from the eerie glow of the moon, it left Lucas momentarily blind, Maira had slight immunity to sudden changes in light due to a lot of shadow traveling. Maria shoved Lucas to the ground following close behind when Thalia passed their hiding spot between the two cabins, playing with a drachma as she walked. After Thalia was a bit further away, Maria stood to follow.
“Maria, No,” Lucas said, harshly pulling the older girl down.
“Come on, aren’t you curious?” Maria whispered, trying to stand up, pulling Lucas’s arm with her.
“No, I’m not, you’ve heard the stories our parents have told us and the camp, I don’t want to be a part of a war!”
“Please, this isn’t a war,” Maria laughed, shaking Lucas off and walking quickly, intending to follow Thalia. Maria repressed a laugh when she heard grumbles and snow crunching behind her, Lucas chasing after her. Despite Lucas not wanting to come, he would never leave his best friend alone, the two campers were thick as thieves.
“I still don’t like this,” Lucas grumbled.
They trailed after Thalia, at least 20 feet behind, stumbling every once and a while when they bumped into each other, the moon had disappeared behind a cloud and left the nearly blind camper struggling. They passed the restroom and showers, Maria wrinkled her nose and sent a look at Lucas, whose shoulders trembled with laughter. Thalia came to a stop in front of The Canoe Lake, which had a slight mist over top of it. Maria and Lucas hid behind a snow pile from a previous snow fight. They watched as Artemis appeared in the image, sitting in front of a campfire and talking to a couple of hunters.
“Lady Artemis, I’ll have to postpone my break for a bit longer,” Thalia said, getting right to the point, Lady Artemis’ smile faded a bit but remained.
“Of course, how long?” the auburn-haired goddess asked, taking the sudden change in plan with stride, she was probably already altering their plans slightly to accommodate for the daughter of Zeus’ absence.
“Undetermined, My Lady.”
“Do you mind if I ask why?” It wasn’t really an option not to, more of a more polite way to ask. Maria hated when her dads told her to do something in the form of a question, she didn’t understand why they didn’t just tell her to do the chore as an order.
“Something has happened at Camp Jupiter, Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Will, and I plan on heading out to see what was up.”
“How bad is it?”
“I’m not sure, My Lady.”
“You’ll tell me if anything out of the ordinary happens?”
“Of course, My Lady,” Thalia said her goodbyes to the hunters still awake and around Artemis, bowing to the goddess before she swiped her hand through the mist, ending the call. Maria and Lucas stayed silent as Thalia stretched for a few minutes before she started sprinting towards the big house, then, out of sight. Maria waited until Thalia’s retreating figure had disappeared through the barrier before turning to Lucas.
“We have to go!” Maria said jumping up and down like an excited puppy.
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do!”
“No, you heard Thalia, it’s probably nothing.”
“Exactly.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Yes, it does, if it’s nothing, we’re just visiting Frank and Hazel, if it’s something, we can help,” Maria argued, waving her hands around like crazy, her tired state already catching up to her.
“Even if I agreed with you, which I don’t, our parents would notice that we are gone, and we don’t even have a way to get there,” Lucas countered, eyes dropping, with no more excitement, his brain finally realized how tired he was too.
“We can leave after our parents when everybody is too tired to care.”
“How are we gonna get across the country?”
“I’ll shadow travel us, obviously.”
“You want to shadow travel across the country?”
A nod.
“With me?”
Another nod.
“You can hardly travel that far by yourself, how do you plan on doing it with me!”
“We’ll make a pitstop,” Maria shrugged.
“You know what fine, I’m going to sleep, we’ll talk about this in the morning,” Lucas gave up, threw his hands up in the air, and started walking back towards his cabin, where his parents were probably wondering where he was.
“Is that a yes?” Maria called after a ridiculous smile on her face. Lucas turned around, walking backward while he flipped her off. After a minute of that, he turned around and raced back to the cabins, disappearing into his cabin.
Maria laughed, the sound echoed around her with nobody making any noise or there to even hear it. Her mind briefly thought about the harpies, wondering how they hadn’t found her yet, that was enough to make her head towards the hades cabin. She walked through the snow, the bottoms of her pajama pants soaked, mentally preparing herself for the angry parents surely waiting for her, ready to scold her.
She entered the cabin and found her Papa and Dad sitting on one of the bunks, Nico, Papa, tapping his foot impatiently and Will rubbing his back comfortingly.
“Where were you?” her papa asked, staring at her with his black eyes that made her want to tell him about her sneaking around.
“I didn’t feel very good, something in the food must not have agreed with me,” Maria explained, changing her pants into shorts and sitting on her bed.
“You couldn’t have left a note?” Nico said, obviously not believing her but choosing to let it slide.
“I didn’t know how long you’d be gone.”
“You worried me.”
“Papa, relax, I was just using the bathroom!” Maria groaned, falling against her bed dramatically.
Nico didn’t answer, Maria could feel his stare on her back, making her hair stay on end.
“I know you and Lucas hang out a lot and that-”
“Papa, I don’t like him like that, Dad, tell him,” Maria cut her father off, ears burning, her voice muffled by her pillow.
“But-”
“No, Papa, we were doing anything, just let me sleep!” Maria whined, pushing her head further into her pillow, trying to disappear.
“Fine, but this conversation isn’t over.”
The lights turned off, and there was some shuffling as Nico and Will got ready for bed. Maria pulled her covers over her head, drowning the world out. She tried to sleep, she really tried, knowing she would only get a few hours of sleep before she had to get up again. Only, her brain wouldn’t let her, imagining different people that had shown up at the camp, monsters, demigods, anybody. When sleep finally came, she was dreaming of Persian Princess and the dead.