Old Vows, Young Lovers

Together

This chapter jumps right into the relationship side of the story and sets us on a path toward the thrilling adventures to be had ahead. There were originally two chapters that led up to this one, but I had to delete them after I got an overwhelming influx of hate.

Yes, this is a guardian story. Fundamentally, it is, but I think classifying it with that trope is a bit naive. I think this story is very unique. I hope you enjoy it.

This chapter was edited and rewritten: 6/06/2024

WARNING! This is a chapter that contains explicit sexual content. Viewer discretion is advised. Please skip the sexual content if you do not wish to read it.

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Artemis flashes back to her camp; it is completely dark outside now due to the late hour, so her hunters were all in their tents, sleeping. Huntresses can choose whether they want to sleep one, two, or three to a tent. Most of the time, they choose to double up, but her lieutenant likes to take advantage of the larger accommodations that she is given.

The tent in which Percy and Artemis sleep is, of course, the largest, but it is also enchanted to be much larger on the inside. The others are, too, but to a lesser degree. She walks through the camp until she gets to her tent. Well, her's and Percy's, you can tell because of the winged, black doughnut-addict that is perched near the entrance. The pegasi had recently taken up residence in the hunt after Percy's heartbreak and relative downfall; he is still recovering from being shot out of the sky after two of the hunters mistook him for a fury or something... She has yet to believe their excuse. The poor pegasus did not take kindly to that, and if the black, winged horse did not have such a forgiving personality, Blackjack might have insisted on a harsh punishment for the perpetrators.

Needless to say, those hunters had a significant amount of chores and revoking of privileges for a while after that. Percy was NOT happy that his pegasus was shot out of the sky. The only reason the poor horse didn't die is because he landed right on Percy or, more accurately, crashed into him. She made the hunters responsible run to Olympus and get five dozen doughnuts, among other punishments, for the horse. She also made it very clear that if anything happened to the injured skyhorse again, there would be severe consequences, the same as if they messed with Percy... Like when he first got here. They are Huntresses, and injuring animals is something that is considered to be a cardinal sin. They only hunt what they need in order to eat, and they never injure animals. Regardless of the connection to Percy that the horse shares, shooting Blackjack is a horrible thing for them to have done.

Artemis has very little idea as to why the Pegasus stays around here. It doesn't make any sense why it would stay here and not move on, but maybe it is because of Percy? They were and always have been very close, so there is no reason to assume that that would not be the reason as to why the horse perches on the top of their tent and eats all their fried food. She can't communicate with him, not like Percy, but the horse does respect her enough to stay out of the parts of camp that she wants him to stay out of. She doesn't mind him staying there in the camp with them because he never gets in the way, and the horse is very sentimental to Percy, so she knows he would think ill of her if she made the pegasus leave. Blackjack lets her pet him, but he does not permit any of the hunters, Artemis included, to ride him, but that is no surprise since they shot him out of the sky; Artemis doesn't trust people that shoot her, either.

She approaches her tent slowly, so she does not wake Percy up in the likelihood that he is already asleep.

"Will he be asleep already?" She thinks to herself. He has not been sleeping well lately, so he must be asleep by now.