The Unclaimed

Chapter 27: My potential father candidates list gets shortened

   At first we ran in silence. But as soon as the little village was out of sight and behind us, I turned to Thalia and said,
   "Explain please," I continued with my question. "Who is the lighting thief? What gods has he fought with? And when did his time of most grief happen?" Once I was finished, Thalia began speaking almost immediately.
   "Shockingly I can actually answer those questions," she said which caused me to smile. "Maybe not fully but I can give you a good idea about some of the answers. So to start, the lightning thief is my friend Percy Jackson. The one thing wrong with that nickname though is that he didn't actually steal Zeus's lightning." She paused so I spoke.
   "Than why is he still called the lightning thief if he never stole the lightning bolt?" I asked the question in a matter of fact way but for some reason Thalia laughed.
   "Because he's Percy and he has some of the most rotten luck when it comes to anything involving the gods," without seeing a mirror I knew that I looked doubtful. There was no way this Percy guy had worse luck than me. Thalia saw my expression and continued laughing. "Listen I'm not gonna lie and say that you have it easy. Your luck with the gods also suck but still not as bad as Percy's. I could explain spend the rest of this quest telling you about everything Percy has gone through but I'll just give you the short and simple summaries; he saved the world, twice. Throughout his time as a demigod he had to deal with two major prophecies and also a lot of technically minor ones as well." All of the doubt left my expression. A small bit of gratitude actually entered my thoughts; my rotten luck was still a hundred times better than Percy's luck.
   "So what gods did Percy fight with when he was on all these quests?" I asked, hoping this would help me narrow down the potential options of my dad. The humor left Thalia's face.
   "It'd be easier for me to tell you which gods he didn't fight with," she said honestly. "Percy has, for lack of better words, a knack for irritating the gods. There are more gods that he has fought with than there gods he hasn't." I felt my facial expression drop in disappointment. A new light popped into Thalia's eyes and it seemed that something had clicked.
   "Unless," she then, quite usefully (I thought to myself sarcastically, stopped talking. I waited for a few moments, expecting her to keep talking but nothing came.
   "Unless what," I prompted her impatiently.
   "What was the last line of the hint again," she asked quickly.
   "Especially during times when this demigod was experiencing much grief." I said instantly; the lines etched into my memory.
   "That might just narrow your options down." I almost stopped because of my shock and excitement.
   "Really?" I asked excitedly. "To who? And why does that narrow it down?" I could hardly contain my excitement.
   "Well, and I'm not a hundred percent certain about what I'm about to say, but I think there are three main potential options as to who your dad is." She told me. "Back when Percy was 12, this was at the same time he was accused of stealing Zeus's lightning bolt, his mom was abducted by Hades. There was a lot of drama going on between the gods at the time, namely Zeus and Poseidon and Hades. Percy is Poseidon's son. Zeus thought Poseidon had Percy steal the bolt so Poseidon could take over. All the gods thought Percy was the thief. When this was going on, he was also brand new to this world; he found out he was a demigod right before his mom was taken by the minotaur." She paused when she heard me gasp in shock. I couldn't even imagine how Percy must have felt at the time.
   "Was he able to rescue his mom?" I asked, praying that he was. She nodded which caused me to breathe a sigh of relief.
   "He managed to save his mom and out the actual thief," she told me. "But while all of this was going on, there were three main gods who fought with him and caused a lot of issues for Percy." I felt my heart nearly stop.
   "Who," I breathed out.
   "Zeus, Ares, and Hades," she responded. I watched her eyes scan over my face as she (clearly) tried to gauge my reaction. "Technically Dionysus could be an option but he and Percy never really fought. They had a few disagreements that to some threats about Percy getting turned into a dolphin but anyways. My best guesses as to who your father has to be would be as I said Zeus, Ares, or Hades." I slowly nodded, taking in the information that she was giving me. As she tried to see how I was feeling, I was trying to figure out how I was feeling. We fell silent. I lost track of how long we had been running for until finally, just as the sun was setting, a sign that read "Approaching Indiana," appeared. Thanks to my new perfected and enhanced vision, I was able to see a figure sitting around fire in the distance. As we got closer I was able to see that it was Artemis. When we finally reached her, she stood and spoke.
   "My hunters, welcome," she said. "I have missed you all dearly." When none of us immediately responded, she was able to take one long look at our expressions, and immediately tell that something was up. "Let us eat and than you shall tell me about your travels today, because I feel that there is new information for you to inform me of." All of us nodded and with that, we set up camp, and prepared for dinner.