Lost & Found

Ch. 8

Thalia stepped back, a little embarrassed of her show of emotion in front of her mistress, but she smiled at Percy anyway.

"What are you doing here Percy?"

"Jeez Pinecone face, do I need a reason to come visit my old mentor?"

Thalia glared at the nickname and waited, knowing Percy would not return to camp just out of nostalgia.

"No," Percy admitted turning more serious, "turns out Poseidon's been busy since the end of the Titan War."

Thalia raised an eyebrow.

"I've got twin siblings, a boy and a girl."

Thalia's eyes widened, "Really? Twins?"

Percy nodded, then glanced at Artemis who looked stoic though he figured she still wanted to kill him.

"Yeah, Lucas and Zoë," he saw both the goddess and Thalia look shocked at the names.

"Zoë and Luke?" Thalia asked, making sure she had heard him correctly.

Percy nodded, "Yeah, I just found out I had siblings today. My Dad wanted to name them after great heroes, like my Mom did with me, in hopes they could live up to the legacies of their namesakes." He noticed both huntresses' surprised expressions and continued, "The greatest huntress in the history of the hunters and the guy who gave his life to save the world… I suppose they could have worse names to try to live up to."

Hearing Percy's words seemed to have taken some of the fire out of the moon goddess' eyes. She glanced at Chiron who nodded and followed her outside so they could speak and allow the two demigod cousins to catch up.

Percy felt relieved when Artemis left. He had no desire to get chewed out at the moment. Instead, he wanted to focus on his friend Thalia. He had missed her over the past couple years. Not that he had seen her much since the end of the Titan War, but that just made it all the better seeing her again.

They spent the next forty minutes walking into camp and exchanging stories about their lives and adventures over the past few years. Thalia had her share of interesting stories with the hunters but she was more interested in where Percy had been. Though her chances were limited, she had tried to ask the campers about Percy as much as she could over the years, the lack of information the past couple years had weighed heavily on her heart. She could only imagine what he was like after Annabeth's death.

But she was pleasantly surprised when he seemed alright. She knew he would hide any of his pain from her but the fact he kept himself busy with a mortal life, even one as a soldier, was good to hear. She was also a little shocked when she learned how close he had grown with Clarisse and Frank.

Before she had a chance to ask him about his surprising friendships with the two children of the war god, Clarisse approached them with both kids in tow. They hadn't said much since Percy and Clarisse explained everything to them about being demigods. They hadn't even heard about the gods before being told by Percy other than their mother telling them when they were very young that their father was a very special man and being his children made them special as well. That was the only thing they knew about their father and they were having trouble understanding what it meant that he was a god.

"Are these the new sea spawns?" Thalia joked looking down at the two kids.

Both immediately took cover behind Clarisse's legs. Though they didn't know what she meant, being called a spawn was not hard to decipher as an insult, even for children.

Percy shook his head at Thalia who looked a little upset she had scared the two children. He knelt down in front of Clarisse and held out his hand to Zoë.