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Thalia Grace is three hundred and eighty-seven years old but still looks fifteen when she dies.

oO0Oo

Luke rolls over in his sleeping bag and links his pinky finger with hers, mindful of the small girl with blond curls sleeping between them.

“Forever,” he promises. 

“Forever,” she echoes.

Forever. Such a simple word for children.

The reality is much less so.

oO0Oo

It’s hard to breathe, standing in the throne room of Olympus in front of the gods. 

She tries to avoid looking at her father. She knows he’s watching her, but she can’t meet his gaze. Not after everything he’d done.

The lightning bolt that had exploded their car might not have been him, but it just as easily could have. She knows her father’s history with usupers, how he always deals with potential threats to his power.

So the lightning could have been Kronos. But it was just as likely to have been Zeus.

One shall perish by a parent’s hand. 

That line could nearly have meant her.

He’d never lifted a finger to help her, anyways. Not until she was dying. Until she was dead and there was nothing he could do but turn her body into a living monument.

And it feels like a weight has lifted from her shoulders as she says, “I will never turn sixteen. I won’t let this prophecy be mine.”

So she kneels, trying not to think of Luke and her father and Percy, who she’d now forced to bear this great burden. “I pledge myself to the goddess Artemis. I turn my back on the company of men…”

And that, she knows, will not be a hard oath to keep.

oO0OO

“I know you still love him,” Artemis says one day soon after they rescued her from Mount Tam, and Thalia goes still.

She doesn’t bother insulting the goddess by trying to play dumb. “It was only ever him, my lady, and that was the dream of a child.”

Artemis stays quiet for a moment, wind blowing wisps of auburn hair around her face, then suddenly says, “Your century has strange terms for love, you know. Back in the Ancient Times, there were so many more to choose from than merely romantic and platonic. I suppose, using the language of your age, I would be considered aromantic and asexual, but that does not mean I do not love. I held philia for Orion, and even if he only ever wanted to possess me, I still mourned for him when he died. I feel storge for my family, no matter how much they do not deserve it. I love my hunters like my sisters, even with the centuries and millennia separating us.”

It’s strange getting relationship advice from a twelve year old. Sometimes Thalia forgets that the young goddess is her half-sister and nearly four thousand years old, despite what appearances might suggest.

“My point, Thalia,” she says, facing her lieutenant, “is that it is natural to love. Even eros has its place in the cosmos and I am not blind to the affections many of my hunters have held for others over the centuries — both before and after joining the Hunt.”

“Like Zoë and Heracles,” Thalia says quietly. “And Josephine and Hemithea.”

“And you and Luke Castellan.” Artemis’ look is pointed. Thalia finds that she cannot meet the goddess’ gaze.

Artemis touches a gentle hand to her forearm. “As long as you do not act on it, do not let it cloud your judgement and interfere with your duties, you are still allowed to love.”

A lump forms in Thalia’s throat. “There’s no need to worry about that, my lady. Luke chose his side and I chose mine; there’s nothing left of the boy I once knew.” 

Artemis just gives her one of those sad looks with infinitely old silver eyes.

oO0Oo

A year later, Artemis sits down silently next to her as she mourns the man she’d loved.

But Luke had chosen his fate, had chosen to become Kronos and kill all those demigods. So crying over him, over the boy he’d once been and the man she never knew, is pointless.

Thalia shoves all the emotional thoughts away. She is a demigod and the Lieutenant of Artemis. The hunters are also in mourning for the sisters lost in the Battle of Manhattan and they need her guidance.

She dries her tears and heads back to camp, Artemis at her side, vowing to never think of Luke Castellan again.

It doesn’t work.

oO0Oo

Sometimes Artemis catches her staring at the night sky with a mixture of longing and sorrow on her face.

The goddess doesn’t say anything, just gives her a sad, knowing look. They watch the stars flicker in Zoë’s constellation in silence.

Thalia keeps her love and her trust close to her chest, something only handed out to those who deserve it. But never as much as she’d given him. Only to the other hunters, never to another man. She’d never make that mistake again.

The word forever sounds hollow to her now.

oO0Oo

Jason dies on a quest to save Apollo, only sixteen and far too young for the destiny that burdened him. It reminds her far too much of losing another blond-haired, blue-eyed man she’d loved not even two years before.

The next time Thalia sees her half-brother, she shoots him full of lightning.

The newly-divine Apollo lets her.

oO0Oo

She doesn’t like thinking about the time that passes. How quickly the decades melt into centuries and how even those pass far too quickly.

Everyone she’d loved is dead. Annabeth, Percy, Jason… They’re all dead. 

But Thalia remains.

She wonders if this is what it’s like to be a god.

oO0Oo

Thalia Grace is three hundred and eighty-seven years old but still looks fifteen when a lucky swipe from Agrius’ paw sends her flying into a rock face.

Pain like nothing she’s ever felt before shatters through her body.  

No, wait—

She has felt this pain before. When the Furies and Hellhounds finally caught up with her on Half-Blood Hill and brutalized her body before Zeus could turn her into a tree and end the agony of twelve too-short years.

And that’s when she knows. Knows that this is the end. After nearly four centuries, it’s finally over.

She struggles for breath but Artemis is there, leaning into her vision. She cradles Thalia’s head in her lap and hushes the shuddering sobs that escape her body.

“All will be well, Thalia. You’ve served me well as my Lieutenant, but you can rest now.”

Thalia nods jerkily. “Rest,” she agrees. She gasps for breath, inhaling a thousand shards of bone in her bashed-in chest. “W–Where…?”

The rest of the question is cut off by a wheezing exhale. Thalia doesn’t look down but knows that her silver jacket is drenched red. Every small jostle makes pain explode through her body. 

She’d felt bones shatter and skin rip when she’d been thrown against the wall. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together and realize that her ribs had snapped and been forced through the skin of her chest with the impact.

She knows the other hunters hollering for nectar and bandages will be too late. The forest where they’d encountered the two bear-like monster brothers has otherwise fallen silent. She doesn’t know if it means it’s over, if they’ve won, or if it’s her own failing senses.

But the prospect of death doesn’t scare her like she supposes it should. Rather, there’s a feeling of… calm. Of relief.

There’s a reason humans aren’t supposed to live forever. 

“You’ll go to Elysium,” Artemis says, eyes lined silver like moonlight. “He’ll be waiting there for you.”

“Jason?” Thalia rasps.

“And the others,” Artemis assures her. “Now rest, Thalia. You’ve done enough.”

Thalia lets out one last shuddering breath. She’s gone before her body fades into stardust. 

oO0Oo

Thalia opens her eyes to the Underworld.

A familiar man stands at the bronze gates of Elysium. Tousled blond hair, eyes the colour of the sky, and that crooked grin that had driven her insane when they were kids.

“Hey Thalia,” Luke says, eyes crinkling as he smiles. He spreads her arms in an unmistakable invitation. “Took you long enough.”

Seventeen. He looks seventeen. He looks like her Luke, like she supposes he had before his quest, before the rage and pain had twisted him into something unrecognizable. Thalia still looks fifteen, so he’s only a few years older and several centuries younger, and the smile looks so natural on his face that she feels tears welling.

And Thalia lets out a choked sob and throws herself into his arms, burying her face in his chest. She’s vaguely aware of a small crowd gathering at the gates behind him, catches a glimpse of Jason’s tattoo and Annabeth’s piercing grey eyes, but she pays them no heed as she clutches him tighter.

He folds his arms around her and holds her close. She can feel the wetness of his own tears dampening her hair. Her trembling hands fist tightly in the white fabric of his shirt as she holds him close without ever intending to let go.

Three hundred years. It had only taken them three hundred years to get here.

But now they have forever.