Man of The Moon

Chapter Five - Gifts

Years passed for Percy and the hunters. To them, it seemed like very few, but in reality, it was almost a quarter of a century. Percy had taken the immortality part of his oath when he turned thirteen, the same age as Zoë was when she took the oath. The hunters had prospered in the time that Percy had been with them. They had gained a few more hunters, and only lost one, a young mortal girl, during a fight with a Hydra that they had ran into.

Percy had still been kept a secret from the other gods. Whenever they were required at a council meeting, at Camp, or anywhere where the gods could see them, Percy would be Andromeda, a mortal that had joined the hunt. None of the gods were suspicious of him, as they knew that mortals could join the hunt. There were only four gods that knew of Percy’s real story, Apollo, Hermes, who would visit the Hunters to bring news, Hestia, as she just knew, and of course Artemis.

Artemis still thought of Percy as her little brother, and it had rubbed off on Apollo too. After ten years, Artemis and Apollo seemed to become better siblings to each other, fighting less, and in general, just being better siblings. The council asked numerous times why they seemed to get along better, but each time, they would receive the same answer. That the two of them had decided that they needed to get along better for the sake of the council, along with the sake for the hunters, and the campers who regularly interacted with the two of them.

In reality though, it was Percy that brought the two of them together. Apollo had begun to think of Percy as a little brother too, and had started to train him on some of his duties. During the beginning of the training, Apollo had tried to get Percy to take on some of his characteristics with women, but after a slap across the face, courtesy of Percy surprisingly, he didn’t try that again. Percy said that he wanted to be like the hunters, swearing off a relationship for the rest of eternity, but that wasn’t entirely true, even though Apollo didn’t know that.

Artemis however did. She realized when Percy took his immortality why he took it at thirteen. Over the years, Percy had become very close with all of the hunters, but he became almost attached to the hip of one of them, Zoë. They hadn’t taken on a sibling like relationship, but instead, became best friends, growing closer as time went on. They went to each other if they needed to confess something, if they were having a hard time with something, or if they just needed someone to talk to. 

But Artemis knew that there was something more for the two of them. Normally, if she saw this in one of her hunters, they would be cursed and very possibly killed, but this was Zoe and Percy, so there was not a problem for the two of them. Artemis noticed after about fifteen or so years, that the two of them were falling in love with each other. It was painfully obvious to Artemis, and even some of the hunters had noticed, especially Phoebe.

When Percy told Apollo that he was talking after the hunters, he was really saying that he was already in love with someone. Apollo had asked Artemis about Percy’s response, and all he received was a knowing smile, something that unnerved him, but he let it slide for the time being.  Artemis was happy for the two of them, but knew that they would almost never admit it to each other, so she just let them live with it.

The hunt was camped on the outskirts of New York City, watching the sun set over the city from a hill not far from Camp Half-Blood as they had just come from the camp, after having to stop there for the summer solstice meeting. The Hunters had decided that they were going to stop there for the day, when Artemis had told them that she had a surprise for them.

The Hunt was excited at this, as Artemis never had gifts or surprises for them.  They assumed that it was going to be a special hunt, or something, but it was something much more special. Artemis called all of them to the dinning tent, their normal meeting area. When the entire hunt was there, Artemis spoke.