Children of The Big Three, Book 3: Titans Curse

Chapter Ten: Canoes and Prophecies

A river. They had found a river. They had to be close to the border to California, and this was their ticket there.. Only one problem being that Percy wasn't here. Thalia wasn't the biggest fan of water, even river and lake water. Because no one knew when Poseidon was gonna feel territorial. Plus, she wasn't exactly feeling at her best after that conversation with Aphrodite. She could have sworn that the Goddess just showed up to mess with her. Whatever the case may be, eventually she did pull herself together enough to put herself on one of the two makeshift rafts they had made, along with Zoë. The Daughter of Zeus was hoping she'd get the solo one, but Rock Paper Scissors was a fickle mistress. Now, Thalia had to mentally prepare herself for the speech that she knew was coming. As if on cue, the Huntress spoke,

"Thalia Grace-"

"No."

"I have not began-"

"The answer is no. I'm not joining the hunters."

"Wow. Doth thou know what they say about assuming?"

"Yeah, we both have asses."

"Precisely."

"So you're not about to give me a lecture on why I should join the Hunters of Artemis?"

"Oh no, I totally am."

"Then no."

"Oh come on! I practiced this for two hours while thou took thy nap in the car. Silena even gave me pointers!"

"That somehow makes me want to hear it less then I already did."

"Thalia."

She sighed. "Fine, but you already know what my answer is going to be."

"Yes, I believe I do. Now," She fake coughed as if to prepare her voice. Zoë then said, in a rather telemarketing type way, "Men have been a constant source of frustration for thou, correct?"

"Correct."

"Thy feelings for them sometimes makes thou make rash decisions, or delude thyself that they are righteous, and thou cannot see any darkness that may be lurking, correct?" For a moment Thalia was silent as she thought, and the face of Luke Castellan came to mind.

"I suppose."

Zoë nodded understandingly. "Has thou ever wished that all the stress would go away? Both from the males in thy life, and from the Great Prophecy?"

Thalia raised an eyebrow. Zoë could tell from the smallest of movements that Thalia now had a small guard up. "Great Prophecy?" Thalia asked, a suspenseful edge coming to her voice. Immediately, Zoë's face turned red with embarrassment, as it was obvious that Thalia did not know. While Zoë herself did not even know the prophecy in its entirety, not even Lady Artemis would divulge such a secret to her, she knew the general gist of the story. The woman would have expected that the ones it was about would be in the loop, at least. Zoë didn't know if there would be repercussions to even mentioning the Great Prophecy to the Daughter of Zeus, but if it were a taboo topic, she would have liked to have known! Perhaps Thalia wasn't that interested, and-

The look that Thalia had on her face dashed any hopes of her not being interested. The girl that had once held a disinterested, or even annoyed expression now focused all of her attention on the Hunter of Artemis. Welp, she couldn't exactly just pull out now, could she? The woman inwardly sighed, this was going to be a conversation and a half, both with the Daughter of Zeus, and later with Lady Artemis. On the bright side however, she did have the girls attention, which was a feat on of itself. Mayhap's she could use it as a pushing point for her proposition, dirty handed as it sounded. She then said something that she herself had been thinking since learning that Thalia knew nothing of the Prophecy. "Thou truly knows nothing of it? Doth thou believe that thy friends are as clueless of it?"

"I don't even know what 'it' is, so imma say yeah."

"It states that a Demi-God will be born from the Eldest of Olympian Gods-"

"Check."

"Said Demi-God will reach sixteen."

"I mean, hopefully. Check."

"That Child of Olympus will be given a choice."

"That has been made abundantly clear, yes."

"That choice will either save Olympus, or cause its complete and utter destruction."

That earned a silent eye raise from Thalia. While that was as stable an answer she could provide, on the inside, she was having much more of a freakout. How could she, or perhaps one of her friends, decide the entire fate of Olympus?! Why where they given literally no warning about this?! Sometimes, Zeus seriously was the worst. Zoë simply allowed Thalia some silence, she could understand that it was a fair bit to take in at once. After a minute or two, Thalia worked up the courage to ask a question. "How.. Does that have anything to do with me joining the hunters?"

Zoë raised an eyebrow at the girls sudden interest. "Ah. Glad you asked. Thou may see, when we join Our Ladies service, we are given partial immortality, as in, we do not die if we are not killed. Technically, thou would be this age forever, and so thou would never turn sixteen; the prophecy would not fall to thou."

"But it might fall to Percy or Nico."

"Are Thou saying thou do not trust them to make the correct decision?"

"No.. No of course they'd make the right choice."

"Then are thou saying you do not trust yourself to make the correct decision, Thalia Grace?"

"..Perhaps."

"Then mayhap's it would be for the best if you joined with the hunters, if thou doth not trust thyself with the responsibility. The Crooked one would not hesitate to take advantage of such obvious doubts."

"But then, I could never.. Percy-"

"Thou are afraid that he would be hurt."

"Yes."

"Think of this, Thalia Grace. Could thou live with Perseus hating thy name? Even if it meant he would live, the other scenario being his death?"

"I-"

"Hey guys!" Silena interjected.

"What!?" Thalia asked, more then happy to get out of the conversation.

"Look where we are!"

"What?"

"The Hoover Dam!"

"Oh. Well.. Dam."

Thalia was the only one to laugh at her joke.