madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-Elsa's into architecture-

Thalia patted Piper on the back. "You up for moving?" Piper nodded happily, fully recovered. "Thanks to Phoebe and Marlene, yeah. You guys are really good at this wilderness survival thing. I feel like I could run ten miles."

Thalia grinned at them all. "She's tough for a child of Aphrodite. I like this one."

"Hey, I could run ten miles too," Leo volunteered from where he was getting up from Teqi's beanbag. "Tough Hephaestus kid here. Let's hit it." Teqi tried not to cringe from second hand embarrassment.

It took Phoebe exactly six seconds to break camp, and Teqi was trying to figure out how the beanbags shrunk like that when they started jogging. Thalia ran uphill through the snow, hugging a tiny little path on the side of the mountain, Teqi jogged next to her. She was happy that she had Thalia back.

Coach Hedge leaped around like a happy mountain goat, coaxing them on like he used to do on track days at school. She didn't mind all the exercise they did at the wilderness school, she was quite fit, but running up a snowy mountain in the cold with an overly excited goat was not her idea of fun. "Come on, Valdez! Pick up the pace! Let's chant. I've got a girl in Kalamazoo—"

"Let's not," Thalia and Teqi snapped in unison, and they glance at each other grinning.

"Jinx"

"Oh, shut it grape girl."

Thalia glanced back at the others trailing behind them, and picked up the pace slightly so they were out of ear shot. "I know you have to finish this quest and all, but after, you could join the hunters? I know you wanted to." Teqi sighed, and looked at her dirty shoes. She had wanted to join the hunters, but she didn't because of Tony. She couldn't bear the thought of not growing up with her friends and family though, being immortal forever.

"A huntress could have broken the curse, but too late the ending will be worse. That was the line from the prophecy that got me into this dam quest." Thalia snorted slightly, and Teqi just rolled her eyes at the hunter's weird sense of humour.

"I don't know what it means, but it could be that um, if you had been a hunter, you would have broken a curse? That might just be me projecting on wanting you to join though." Thalia chuckled nervously at the last part, but the heavy thought lingered in the air. Was it Teqi's fault that there was a curse? What even was the curse? Who made it?

It was around now that she needed a nightmare to tell her what was happening, all her friends had had a god or monster drop in to help out [or steal a dad. Teqi wouldn't be sad if her father got kidnapped by a giant, but then she would have to go rescue him.] and she wanted at least a little bit of guidance. Sure, she had trained all her life for this, but that didn't mean she knew what to do. She hadn't even got to fight anything properly, without blacking out and going purple VecnaTM.

They stopped at a small ledge on the cliff side. Leo slammed into Thalia and nearly sent them both down the side of the mountain the hard way. Fortunately, the Hunter was light on her feet, and she pushed them away from the edge. Teqi just rolled her eyes once again at Leo's clumsiness, but helped him up from the snow.

"Thanks, Amanté" he mumbled, standing up properly, before looking up. Teqi followed his line of sight, and her jaw dropped. She didn't see Phoebe whip her head around and glare at Leo after he spoke.