Prompt #019 - White

Prompt # 019 - White

Frozen

Time Frame: Post-Titan’s Curse, Pre-The Last Olympian: Winter

Pairing: Vague Thalia/Luke

POV: Thalia

**

“Oh…the snow is burying this town.”

-Godric’s Hollow

By: Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons

**

The world around me is white. White sky, white ground, white everything in between. White snowflakes dance and float gently to the ground—blanketing the silent, sleeping earth.

I sprint through the frozen forest, my bow secured comfortingly on my back. Among the whirling flakes and crystallized trees, I see more hoof prints and pick up the trail once more. My senses are sharpened and focused due to the frigid air—there is nothing like the thrill of the hunt in winter. I love hunting in the winter far more than any other season. There is just something about the whiteness and the cold and the silence.

I can think out here…far away from the others. I can finally just think.

My tracking goes on auto-pilot as my mind drifts like the silent snow. Drifts stirring up other drifts—revealing distant memories I had not allowed myself to think of in forever.

It was a day like this, I remember. A frozen, beautiful Christmas day: just us three. Just me and Luke and Annabeth, huddled under a frosted pine, warming our hands by the fire, exchanging joking gifts of pine cones and snowballs having nothing substantial to give.

We were cold and hungry and lost and alone but we were happy—forever not knowing what tomorrow would bring, constantly wondering and worrying but together. We lived each day as if it might be our last.

Now, as I flit between the trees, they seem less beautiful to me without my Luke and my Annabeth here. I miss living so strongly and fiercely.

Don’t misunderstand, I love being a hunter. I am free of my duty and responsibility of being a child of the big three. I serve my goddess and lead the hunts. I get to track and stalk and shoot with my sisters.

But I miss the feeling of waking up, not knowing what to expect—of always anticipating the far distant future...how our lives will turn out: me and Luke and Annabeth

I skid to a halt in the powdery snow as it suddenly strikes me that Annabeth will have to be as old as me by now. I remember taking care of her as a little girl. We will look the same age now. My heart grows heavy, suddenly, as I think of how much taller she will grow, how she will become a woman—full of power and grace. I will forever been a fifteen-year-old girl—still slightly awkward, despite my added reflexes, not quite yet grown into my body and, I realize, I never will.

And Luke…ah, my Luke. He is further gone than any I used to know. Luke will never surpass me the way Annabeth will. He will die soon—is already dead for all intents and purposes. Hot tears sting my eyes all of a sudden as I realize I will never get to lay an escape route, or stand back to back in a fight with him ever again. I will never get to whisper my fears to him after Annabeth has fallen asleep, or feel him hold me as I wake from a nightmare in the dark, sobbing like a child.

How far they have come since then.

Annabeth…then—a tiny yet determined child, now—a strong fighter, strong leader, strong girl.

Luke…then—a protector, a wing man, now—a traitor, a puppet, a corpse.

And me…then—a sacrificial martyr, rebellious teenager, now…well, I’m still the same, and forever will be.

As I watch the snow swirl around me, dotting my black hair with specks of white, I can see how I belong in this frozen landscape: I am frozen where I am—solid like a frozen pine needle or fallen twig. If I try to bend, I break. But when spring comes to these woods, the snow will melt and flowers will bloom and Persephone will breathe new life into everything. But unlike this forest, I will not melt when spring comes, I will not change or move or bloom or breathe new life.

I will remain forever frozen as the world progresses without me. A frozen winter just like now—white and still.

I take off running again, if only for the sake of moving my legs and arms again, trying to pump adrenaline into my immortal veins—simply trying to feel alive.

~fin~