The Unclaimed

Chapter 30: The third morning of my quest

When I woke up the next morning I was shocked; the gods had actually answered my prayers (for once) I hadn't had any bad dreams last night. I felt a smile creep onto my face.
"What's got you so happy," I heard a tired Thalia question from the other side of the tent.
"No bad dreams last night," I said happily. "I was actually able to sleep for once." A huge smile appeared on her face.
"Really, thats great!" She said, clearly excited for me. There was a knock on our tent door. "Come in." Thalia said loudly. In walking Artemis. Both Thalia and I immediately jumped to our feet.
"What's with all the noise in here?" Artemis questioned us. I felt the blood rush to my face.
"That would be us celebrating the fact that I had no nightmares last night m'lady." I said quietly. She smiled widely at what I said.
"Really," her tone screamed excitement. "Oh that's wonderful Jessica. It's about time you were able to get a good nights sleep." Artemis was almost bouncing up and down in her happiness. Thalia and I shared a quick look of amusement over the goddesses reaction. After she was finished celebrating, Artemis managed to calm down and then said, "I was just walking to breakfast when I heard all the noise you two were making. Now that that's cleared up would you two care to accompany me to breakfast before we need to pack up and leave." Thalia and I nodded. With that, Artemis exited our tent and we followed behind her. As hard as I tried to wipe my smile off my face, I couldn't. The past few nights of sleep had just been so rough for me. Not having bad dreams, even if it was just a one night thing, was basically a miracle for me.
"Good morning everyone," Thalia said loudly and cheerfully as we approached the other hunters. They all gave her a look; none of them were fully awake yet and they didn't understand the origin of Thalia's happiness.
"How are you so awake right now?" McKenna asked. Thalia just shrugged in response while filling her plate with food.
"Lady's eat quickly." Artemis said. Her tone was no longer playful like it had been in the tent; she was not taking the role of leader. "Today we will be running far; perhaps farther than we have in a long time. We will get all the way through Indiana and at least half-way through Illinois today. And if we find it possible we will try to make it all the way across both states." I might have been pretty new to the hunt but even I knew that was a long distance for us to be able to run in the course of a day. The shocked looks on all the other hunters, including Thalia's, faces told me that I was right to think that sounded a little crazy.
"M'lady," Thalia said slowly and hesitantly. "Getting through two states, in one day. Are, are you sure that's healthy and well possible?" The rest of hunters murmured in agreement with Thalia's question. Artemis's confident expression didn't waver.
"It will not be easy," she answered truthfully. "By the time night comes you will feel more physically and mentally exhausted than you ever have been before. But, it is possible and it is necessary. We are on the right track to assisting Jessica in completing her quest, but I feel as if we must travel even farther if we want to reveal the truth." As soon as she mentioned my name my head snapped up from staring at the ground to looking at her. If she was right, if we needed to travel even farther in order to find out the truth, then I would give it my all. I would fight through any aches I go and no matter how tired I was I would keep going. As a member of the hunt I would done that anyways but perhaps not in the same determined manner that I now planned to have.
"I take it we should leave, like now then right," Maddison said. Artemis shrugged in response.
"If we leave sooner versus later, it would be better," Artemis agreed. "But we still have a little bit of time until we have to leave. Which is a good thing because I believe there are some tents that you all need to pack up." All of us hunters shared a look of oh yeah and than dropped our plates and sprinted off to the tents. Artemis was laughing at our urgency. Once everything was packed up, with our bows in our hands, we started running. Our pace started out relatively slow, no one wanted to tire themselves out to early into the day.