"Honestly, I'm dumbfounded. I know I'm new to the hunt and everything, but I'd thought I'd be able to leave you all to your own devices for two days?! Did I hear this right? Squirrels left you in this state?" Thalia chastised the other hunters.
Zoe and the rest of the hunters stood around, their eyes wandering, as they avoided both Thalia's bewildered expression, and Artemis' questioning glance.
"I am very disappointed with all of you," Artemis added, looking over the assembled hunters; all were rather scratched up and bruised.
"And here, I thought the hunters were all highly skilled and trained fighters. The elite of the elite. Now I hear you guys succumbed to an attack of squirrels?" Thalia placed her hand on her forehead, over-exaggerating her amazement by the story, snickering at the hunters' collective embarrassment.
"There were also Chipmunks.... Gods damned, nut lobbing devils...." Daphne trued to explain, which only caused the daughter of Zeus to burst into full blown laughter, which seehad clearly been trying to avoid doing up till that point.
Artemis on the other hand, wasn't as amused. "Squirrels. They were only squirrels. And you couldn't -"
"But-"
"No buts Zoe. No buts, any of you. You all were supposed to catch them, but instead you get defeated simple squirrels and chipmunks"
Percy decided to cut in, "-and sparrows. Oh, and don't forgot falcons." He smiled mischievously, earning pointed glares from multiple huntresses. The son of Poseidon laughed, before continuing to pet the Peregrine that had bonded with him and was currently perched on his finger.
"I go away from you guys for two days to pick up my stuff from camp, and you end up being attacked by squirrels," Thalia repeated, before choking from laughing too hard.
Zoe, in turn, glared harshly at the daughter of Zeus.
"Oh, they weren't attacked. Artemis sent them after us as part of our... Initiation, was it my lady?"
Artemis rolled her eyes at Percy's words, "Clearly a mistake on my part. Although I must commend you on your leadership skills in the guise of a squirrel, although the hunters couldn't understand you, I must say, that speech you gave was rather impressive for you."
Percy laughed good naturedly at that.
"Maybe you should have stayed, you wouldn't be laughing then," Zoe grumbled, stoically. This only caused the blue eyed huntress to laugh even harder, which in turn made Zoe glare harder.
"At least we finally managed to catch them..." Phoebe said.
Artemis stared pointedly at her. "And how long did that take?"
Phoebe grumbled under her breath.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you?"
"Four hours."
Thalia's eyes widened, "It took fifteen hunters four hours to catch two measly squirrels?!"
Bianca cleared her throat, clearly miffed at being called a measly squirrel.
"Er- Percy and Bianca turned-squirrels," Thalia rephrased, correcting herself.
The aforementioned daughter of Hades nodded her affirmation and continued to look at Percy's falcon with jealousy.
"Yeah, them and nineteen other demon squirrels from Hades."
Bianca glared at Siva, who had been the one who had spoken. The Indian girl ignored her younger half-sister.
"Let's not forget to mention those damned chipmunks and those gods-awful nuts!" Daphne said, comfortingly patting Mia's back, who seemed to be going into shock with flashbacks.
"And those birds!"
Percy's falcon squawked, as though it could understand Arya's speech. Said girl flinched at the sound.
"Hey! Leave Horus out of this!" Percy yelled.
Siva gave Percy a dead-pan expression, "You-you named your bird?"
"-after an Egyptian god?" Phoebe continued.
Percy looked at the girls, clearly offended. "Horus is not just a bird! He is my friend!"
The normally rather aggressive bird nuzzles into Percy's neck, squawking at the two hunters who had dissed it.
He stuck his tongue out at them, "More than you guys are at the very least."
"Your falcon understands human speech?" Pacifica said, intrigued.
Horus turned towards Pacifica and nodded. The blonde daughter of Apollo's eyes widened.
"How?"
The bird seemed to shrug its shoulders - er - wings. The hunters decided to leave the weird situation behind them.
"Zoe, you and the hunters are going to have double chores for the rest of the week, dismissed," Artemis told. Not attempting to hide their groans of disappointment, the hunters dispersed, leaving only Artemis, Percy, Bianca, Thalia and Zoe in Artemis' tent.
"You managed to tame an army of woodland creatures kelp head, what next?" Thalia asked the grinning son of Poseidon.
Percy's smile wavered at the daughter of Zeus.
"Oh, I dunno, world domination?"
Thalia burst into laughter.
"Speaking of taking an army of woodland creatures, how exactly did you manage to do that, Percy?" Zoe interjected, wholly curious about how the boy before her managed such a feat.
Percy looked her dead in the eyes before answering, "I just asked."
Zoe narrowed her eyes. "You speak squirrel?"
Percy rolled his eyes, "Yeah, Falcon too."
He turned to his pet bird, before gave a loud squawk, startling the feathers from Horus. The falcon shook its head disapprovingly.
"That was a joke," the boy explained, "I don't speak falcon. Mais je parle un peu de français."
Thalia stared at Percy, "Since when do you speak French?"
Percy shrugged, "I had to study a bit in an old school before I was kicked out. English was basically a foreign language with dyslexia. French wasn't much harder."
Thalia nodded her head in understanding, knowing the struggles of dyslexia. Zoe however, was not about to let up on gaining the information she desired..
"But how did you manage to get them to gang up on us?"
Percy made a sushing motion, "Shh... Secrets of the trade."
At that moment, Zoe wanted to strangle Percy Jackson to death.
"Percy! No animals on the table!"
Percy groaned, "But Artemis-"
The goddess cut him off, "No words from you. Just be grateful that I let you keep your bird-" Horus squawked. "-Horus, with us in the hunt. But he will not be eating with us on the table. If you wish to feed him, you may do so elsewhere."
Zoe knew that Artemis' actions were probably because of how a few girls were seated low, nearly hiding from the bird and Percy. It seems, many had developed a (hopefully temporary) irrational fear of the two."
Percy grumbled under his breath, "Fine," he conceded.
Artemis beamed, "Good. Now finish your lunch-" She looked towards the setting sun. "-We might be running a little late," the goddess glared at Percy who sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, "- but we aren't going to skip after lunch training. I don't care if it becomes tomorrow, you girls aren't going to bed until all of you are done with your duties."
The hunters, including Percy groaned at that.
"Oh don't give me that, you've brought this upon yourselves when you took four hours to capture two squirrels."
Grumbling under their breaths, the hunters continued to shovel their food into their mouths.
Zoe was no exception, she was exhausted and covered with scratches, all she wanted to do was finish her late lunch and collapse into the bed in her tent.
She took a glance at Percy, who was no longer seated next to her, and had instead wandered off towards the archery range to feed Horus.
If what Artemis had said earlier was right, then Horus was the same peregrine falcon that had tried to eat Bianca before Artemis cast a spell on it to calm it down. They seemed to have made peace by now though. After the hunters had finally managed to stop the onslaught of squirrel attacks, most the animals had dispersed into the forest but one falcon stayed, circling around the hunters threateningly.
Artemis of course, came to their rescue and willed the falcon to fly away, which it did, only to return in a few minutes, seemingly able to recognize Percy in his human form.
The falcon didn't allow anyone else near it, but seemed to be attached to Percy. How the bird understood English, however, she had no idea, although she suspected that Artemis might have had something to do with it.
Zoe looked down at her plate. She was nearly done with her lunch consisting of the previous day's leftovers. Phoebe's venison was unsurprisingly delicious even though it was nearly a day old.
Zoe's vision trailed back to the raven haired boy that had managed to capture her heart after over three thousand two hundred and forty-two years of dormancy since she had her heart broken by Heracles.
Even if she couldn't admit it to others, she could admit it to herself. She loved Percy Jackson.
Zoe's eyes met with his sea green orbs and she began to get butterflies in her stomach. She wondered what it would be like to kiss the boy. Her face began to resemble a tomato at that point. He would be her first.
Zoe almost missed the playful glint in Artemis' silver eyes.
The goddess was reading her mind!
"Of course I am Zoe, this is some golden blackmail material."
Sometimes she loved how telepathy only works between two people, she would have been so embarrassed if Artemis would have said the words aloud.
"Alright girls, let's go to the archery range where Percy is waiting-" Horus, the little attention-hog thst he was, squaked. Artemis rolled her eyes,"Percy and Horus are waiting."
Mia cheered, "Gods, I've been dying to use my bow! Let's shoot something!"
[A/N: And... we've caught up. Yay! Starting now, uploads slow down. About a chapter biweekly, faster or slower depending on how busy and/or lazy Josh and I are.]