𝐎, 𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄! ; Percy Jackson

𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐞

( XIX );

( divine beings )

          "THE STARS."

            Zoe repeated, it seemed as if the poison that struck her side was creeping up her throat, closing in on her every breath with death's cloaked hand, wisps of passing curling underneath its fingertips.

           "Hang in there, Zoe," Nicoletta found it hard to inhale as well. With her muscles still beating like a broken heartbeat she found all of the most negative things she had said to Zoe resurface in her head, searching for a positive but shards of broken glass impaling her with every glance. She couldn't find one.

             "Can't you heal her with magic?" Percy asked Artemis. "I mean... you're a goddess."

             Well, duh.

              Nicoletta sniffled and tentatively moved an askew piece of hair behind Zoe's ear, her skin felt cold, as if her body had already shut down and her heart had already moved on to another soul.

          Artemis looked troubled. "Life is a fragile thing, Percy. If the Fates will the string to be cut, there is little I can do. But I can try."

            The goddess tried to set her hand on Zoe's side, but Zoe gripped her wrist. She looked into Artemis' eyes, and some kind of understanding passed between them.

            "Have I... served thee well?" Zoe whispered.

             "With great honor," Artemis said softly, flexing her fingers as if this pained her much. "The finest of my attendants."

               Zoe's face relaxed. "Rest. At last."

             Nicoletta tried to find peace in passing. Zoe's face looked the calmest she had ever seen her, but it was still hard to. Stepping away from the girl and bumping into Percy's chest, too struck with grief to even acknowledge it and the boy didn't shy away from that fact. Nicoletta's hair, a pin-straight shoulder-length made her look much older, finished off with an extraterrestrial polish. Her divine soul glistened with age, awaiting her blossoming youth.

          "I can try to heal the poison, my brave one."

             With one look at Zoe, she could tell that it wasn't the poison killing her, it was her father's final blow in the matter.  One would die by a parent's hand. Zoe, stouthearted and all, knew this and still chose to go. She put herself and her body aside and sacrificed herself for Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt, and for them existentially. A true heroine.

                  She saw Thalia and took her hand.

               "I am sorry we argued," Zoe said. "We could have been sisters."