Heaven Burns

New Plan

(Bonus: Little Thia Art I attempted to do)
Leah's POV

Thia, try as she might, was struggling to keep up with the rest of us. It helped that the snow numbed her injured foot, but even that only did so much for her. "Alright, hop on."
"What?" She asked, arching a brow.
"We have to keep up so hop on," I insisted, to which she very hesitantly clambered onto my back. "Thank the gods you're light as a feather."
"Thanks?"
"Welcome." laughing, I trudged up a small incline to meet back up with Andy and the others.
"Given the fact that we encountered another Titan I'm inclined to believe there's more," Andy noted, seemingly talking to himself but loud enough for the rest of us to hear. "If anything they're being woken up and put to work."
"Work which includes keeping us in check," Marianna concluded. "While the lord of time can finish his hunting duties."
"Ah," Persephone winced, "let's not use such a descriptor. It's... unsettling."
"Sorry," Marianna stammered.
"We can discuss this more when all of us are together," I suggested. The last thing I wanted was for us to jump to hasty conclusions.
The rest of our journey was done in relative silence until we crested a hill and saw the Pegasi down below. Walking carefully as not to fall I managed to traverse the snowy terrain without sending Thia and I into a frozen heap.
"What happened?" Thalia demanded the moment she took notice of us.
"I got stabbed...in the foot," Thia winced, sounding much like a kid admitting to stealing candy. Uncertain, a little afraid, and a tiny bit hopeful that they wouldn't be getting into trouble.
"H-how did you manage to do that?" Was the next question.
"Long story," Andy breathed, "which I would feel more comfortable explaining away from here."
"Right," Thalia nodded, but she eyed Thia wearily.
We all managed to situate ourselves on the Pegasi of our choosing and when Jamie politely offered his spot to Persephone she kindly refused. Then, much to his amazement, she shifted into the form of a small bird and sat perched upon this head.
"I got a birdie on my head," he told Thia as if it were the most confidential information in the world.
"Hopefully it won't poop on your head," Luke teased, earning a peck to the forehead from Persephone.
Once we'd done an inventory check our small team of rag tag heroes and horses ventured off and away from the snowy mountain tops. As far as I was concerned I didn't want to come back to this place at all. It was too cold, too ominous, and very exhausting.
Silence stretched on through our group for some time before the mountains were safely behind us and Andy spoke up. He retold what had happened, the little cavern, finding Persephone, our encounter with Coeus, and our hasty escape.
"Then we ought to stop," Reyna decided, "such cold temperatures on an open wound like that are bad. Now that we aren't in imminent danger we can afford to doctor you up."
Thia swallowed nervously but nodded in agreement with her mother. I figured I'd be less than thrilled about getting a wound in the foot cleaned up too. No doubt it would hurt.
"The Pegasi can rest for now," Luke agreed, "and we can at least figure out a plan."
"Great," Marianna smiled, happily sliding off of her steed and rubbing her butt, "because I'm starting to realize this isn't butt friendly."
"Or dick friendly," Andy noted, "ice chafes in such-"
"I do not want to know where you have chafed!" I yelled, already shivering at the mere idea of where he was going with that sentence.
Laughing, Luke helped Thia and Jamie down from their Pegasi and tied the lead loosely to the branch of a tree. Jamie preoccupied himself with chasing Persephone about our hastily made camp while Andy set to work on building up a fire to dry our now dethawed clothes. That, and Reyna insisted on de-thawing Thalia.
"Alright, park it," Reyna ordered to both Thia and her wife. Thia sat upon the ground with her bad leg extended and a look of resignation on her face. Reyna tugged off Thia's shoe with care and then her sock but even that drew a few winces.
The sight of the wound made my stomach twist. It was a quarter sized hole with tattered edges, blood seemingly frozen in a large clot in the center, with the edges of frayed muscle clinging to the sides in a disgusting frame.
"Good lord," Reyna breathed. "You have your mother's luck alright."
"Hey!" Thalia protested.
"Thankfully there's not a lot of shrapnel in the wound," Reyna noted, "just a few tiny pebbles."
"That explains why it felt like I was blending my foot when I walked," Thia groaned. "Okay, just get it over with."
In all, I had to give Thia credit. She was tough as nails. Though it clearly caused her pain to have the wound treated she managed to keep her squirming to a minimum and somehow not a single curse slipped out.
On occasion, Jamie would wander over and check on her like a concerned father, "Okay? Not too bad?"
"No, Jamie," a wince, "I'm great."
"Lying to a child like that?" I teased, earning a half hearted glare in reply.
"If only Will was here he'd know how to fix the rest of this," Reyna sighed, mumbling to herself in frustration.
"Please tell me we don't have to cut it off," Thia whined.
"No, and why on earth would I cut my own daughter's foot off?" Reyna frowned.
"Revenge for all the times I got in bed with you as a kid and stuck my cold feet on you," Thia explained in all seriousness.
"Ha Ha," Reyna rolled her eyes, and set to work on bandaging the wound.
"You're horribly dramatic," I mused, sitting down beside Thia. She simply gave a pained grunt in reply as I took her hand.
"Okay, fire is stoked, wet clothes off or we are going to have some serious hypothermia," Andy shivered, already with a plethora of goose bumps on his arms.
Now, in my head, if I was much younger than I was now I'd think a bunch of half naked people sitting around a fire would be weird but somehow it was one of the most normal experiences of my life.
"Now that danger is taking a nap we have to ask ourselves what to do next," Luke proposed, "and as much as I enjoy rescuing the gods this feels horribly inefficient."
"You got me there," Andy snorted, "because at this rate it'll be decades before we find all of them. We don't have that kind of time. We're lucky Time Lord isn't trying to kill us. He's carrying out another agenda at the moment which spares our lives for a few days max. Then he's back to hunting us and the gods. At this rate we won't have any forces to stand up against him."
"Perhaps I can try and rally the others," Persephone suggested, already looking much healthier after a few minutes in the warmth of the fire.
"That could be helpful," Reyna nodded. "But going alone is bad. God or not."
"I'll drag Hephaestus along," Persephone insisted, and I got the impression she very well would.
"Any ideas?" Andy asked, looking at Thia. "Any voices telling you what to do?"
"Uh...no," Thia replied, "no voices. Truthfully, I'm just as lost as the rest of you. I can't make sense of this. It's like we're stuck in an endless loop of cat and mouse. At first I thought He was after me but it seems like his motivations have changed."
"He ruined Olympus," Persephone mumbled, "and it seems to me that he wants us gone. The only reason he was adamant on taking you down was because you're the only one quite capable of standing in his way."
"So why not persist in trying to kill her?" Marianna asked. "Not that I want you dead Thia! You're amazing and I love."
"Energy," Persephone shrugged, "why waste time doing that when he can continue on with the original plan? During the second war the titans weren't particularly there. There were weak visages of them. Somehow, they've all grown stronger, taken physical forms without hosts, and that makes them even more dangerous."
"So he gets his siblings together and picks you all off one by one," Thalia thought aloud, "then what?"
"He can do whatever he wants however he wants without interference. Unlike the other enemies you all have faced there is no justification here. No punishment of the world, no banishment from Olympus, or tragic backstory. This is simply for revenge. That's all," Persephone's face looked grim in the fire light.
"If we can't stop him from bringing his siblings back then what can we do? There's no way you'll be able to find everyone in time. Not with the speed at which He's working," Luke sighed, tapping his fingers on his chin. "And once they're capable of standing alone everyone is in danger and it becomes a game of survival."
"We find the titans ourselves," Thia remarked, having gone quiet some time ago.
"I just said-"
"I know what you said," Thia interrupted, "but you're wrong. He won't find all of them. He won't go to all of them. There's something that powerful people do and that's seek out others with power. He won't find the minor gods, not before the Olympians, and he won't search for certain Titans. Think on it, would he bring Rhea into battle? The one who actively kept Zeus from him? No. He wouldn't, which means that just like the Civil War in Rome there's a divide. But this time we use the divide to our advantage."
"That-that's quite brilliant," Persephone smiled.
"I knew you had my brain," Reyna smirked, earning a punch from Thalia.
"Now how we find them is a different story but I can meditate on that," Thia promised, blushing slightly at the praise the others were mumbling.
"Well, until then we at least have the beginnings of a new plan," Marianna grinned, ever positive.
"In the mean time you all should rest. I will depart, but I thank you kindly for your efforts. You're remarkable," Persephone spoke kindly, seeming to emanate a pleasant and warm aura. Each of us closed our eyes and a flash of light refracted off of the back of my eyelids and the smell of wildflowers wafted briefly in the air.
Throughout the evening we slowly removed our clothes from the drying area and slipped them back on. The warmth was a relief to the previous cold, and it made falling asleep much easier. Thia, all angles and bones, was out like a light. It surprised me because she was usually one of the last to fall asleep, but she'd handled a lot.
All too happy to get some shut eye, I curled up next to her. She must have been the slightest bit awake because she rolled over and placed a kiss to the edge of my lips practically missing her intended target. "Thanks for piggy backing me."
"Anytime," I laughed, watching her smile ever so slightly before going still. "Dork."