Author's Note: Spoilers ahead for The Burning Maze because guess what? I'm still upset and I made myself sad on tumblr yesterday. Also I miss my siblings and that, friends, is a chaotic mix of emotions. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to Rick Riordan, and this story derives from his original works, storylines, and world.

Warnings: Loss; grief; canon character deaths

Thousands of Years of Breaking Even

Thalia broke the schedule she had made and shooed the girls who had been assigned the early morning watch, sending them back into their tents.

"You'll watch camp alone?" One of the hunters—a girl named Elizabeth who had escaped an arranged marriage in the 1830s—asked, worried.

"I'll be alright," Thalia said, taking full advantage of the fact that the current guard was incredibly sleepy and wouldn't bother to nag their lieutenant.

Sure enough, they whispered their goodnights and slung their bows and quivers off their shoulders as they made their ways back to their respective tents. Thalia sighed when she was finally alone—her and the bullfrogs croaking in the woods, alongside a nocturnal orchestra of sounds that reminded her just how alive the woods and the wilderness always was. At first it had been exciting to be immortal and to feel like that too; always sharp, always ready, on a speed or rhythm just a little bit quicker and a little bit slower than the rest of the world. Now she was tired and she wanted to curl up in bed and rest, but in the absence of sleep she would take solitude and sit by the fire with crackling logs and smoking kindle as company.

She sighed as she sat on a log the hunters had pulled up close to the firepit earlier, taking her own weight off her feet. She took the silver circlet that rested on her forehead off and rested it on her lap, wiping at her eyes before stopping herself. She was running out of eyeliner, she'd have to pick up more the next time they stopped at a town to resupply, and couldn't afford to smear her makeup. Luke had been wrong about a lot of things, but he had rightfully called her painted nails and painted eyes armour: it made her braver and sharper and happier to sit in the skin she was in.

"It has been a long day," someone said. Thalia spun around and saw Artemis walking out of the edge of the woods in her usual slip of a thirteen-year-old shape. Her auburn hair was neatly braided back in the strange lace braid and fishtail hybrid that one of the younger hunters, Sammy, had plaited everyone's hair in that afternoon. Well, everyone whose hair was long enough. Sammy was really cute and she kept pleading with Thalia to grow her hair out, but that just wasn't going to happen.

The goddess' eyes glowed silver like the moonlight now that evening had fallen. She wasn't wearing the silvery uniform of the hunt, but rather a flowing gown chopped at the knee. Thalia knew the goddess had other business to attend to at night, other realms of her power which demanded her attention, so she wasn't altogether surprised to see her. The timing was somewhat unfortunate; that was all.

"It's been so-so, My Lady," Thalia said.

The Hunters had mostly spent the day setting up this camp. Two days ago they had assisted in a mortal search and rescue effort for two little girls who had been abducted and left in the woods. As soon as they had secured the girls, cleaned them up a little, and nudged the mortal emergency services in their direction, they had had to pack up and leave before being found out. Thalia and a few other girls were quite good at manipulating the mist and Artemis would always step in to protect her Hunters should it come to that, but the goddess liked seeing them act independently and get out of trouble on their own. They'd put quite a bit of space between them and the site of their rescue operation yesterday before setting up camp again today. They would probably stay here for a week, exploring Yosemite National Park, playing in the waterfalls, hiking the mountains, hosting target practise from clifftops, fishing and gathering… it would be nice and calm, which was excellent since they had a newish recruit with them who still needed to come out of her shell.

"I was thinking of letting the hunters sleep in an extra hour tomorrow morning," Thalia suggested. "It's been a busy few days and I think they've earned the rest."

"Of course," Artemis said. "But you and I both know that this is not what I meant."

Thalia didn't want to answer right away so she looked at the fire for a few moments, losing herself in the flickering licks of orange.

"I did know Jason some," Artemis finally said. "As Diana, naturally. I did not know him much, but I knew of him. Of the things he did."

"I barely know what kind of a hero he was," Thalia said quietly. "I just know he was my little brother and I…"

She didn't finish her sentence. The news had come three days ago. Three long, very long, days. While there was no good way for that news to come to her, she had been surprisingly thankful that Percy Jackson's Iris Message had been the first one to get through to her. He had seemed just as surprised about getting in touch as she was—both because of the longstanding communication issues in the demigod world but also because it was rare for a boy's IM to reach the hunt. Maybe Iris had sensed that Artemis would understand this one.

Regardless; Thalia had been thankful that she had heard the news from someone who had been nearly as upset, nearly as personally shattered, and just as close to the fate of a prophecy child and of heroes lost as she had been. Or at least she was now; when Percy had told her what had happened to Jason she had been heartbroken and numb, as if any kind of numbness could veil that impossible pain and loss. She should know it wouldn't; she had tried the first time she had lost him. But then the Hunt had gotten busy and there had been fires to put out in the world, and so this was the first time she had been able to sit down with her thoughts. They were not kind.

"I have a little brother too, Thalia," Artemis said gently. "A very different kind of little brother, granted, and while I will not pretend to understand how mortals feel and hurt, I have spent centuries hunting and practising empathy."

Thalia swallowed hard.

"I don't even know how… how much of a big sister I truly was," Thalia said. "I watched him when he was little, kept him out of trouble, read him bedtime stories, salvaged him dinner, got him to sleep even when he didn't want to, but that… I didn't know him for nearly fifteen years of his life. I was just there for an inch of his life but it felt like a mile for me because I thought that was all we would have."

Artemis nodded. She was an exceptionally good listener, as far as goddesses were concerned. Thalia wondered if it was because so much of her everyday work and realm relied on being quiet and in-tune with your surroundings, on looking for signs of the world without giving a sign of yourself.

"We were supposed to get more," Thalia said, looking at the fire. "We were… we were going to make up for all that lost time. That was the plan. I've only been immortal for a few years, my Lady, how is it that I forgot this quickly that heroes don't get to have time?"

Artemis didn't have an answer for that. She looked up at the sky and Thalia noticed that the constellation of Zoë the Hunter was especially visible that night.

"Immortals are reminded of it, Thalia," she said. "And those reminders are not kind."

Thalia sighed and looked at the fire, slumping over her knees. How badly would it hurt when the same news came to her about Annabeth, Nico, Percy..? Artemis historically had protected young girls from harm and had taken them in once their hearts had been broken. Thalia had entered the hunt with a raw wound and a profound loss in the place where she had once cared for Luke. But losing a friend, losing a brother… Thalia wanted to shake whoever had hierarchized loves and losses and gotten it all so very wrong. There were much worse heartbreaks in the world than those that came when you thought you were in love, because you could love truly and have it taken from you in a way that, infuriatingly, wasn't anybody's fault.

"How does it hurt worse the second time that I lose him?" Thalia asked, conscious that her voice was breaking as she asked. And there she was; crying with all the tears that had been anger and frustration and rage the first time, and all the tears that came to her now. "How could it possibly hurt worse the second time?"

"Hope," Artemis said simply. "You were hoping for more, this time. Hurt makes things worse."

She slid down the log so she was closer to Thalia, putting a hand on the spot between Thalia's shoulder blades as if to stabilize her. Thalia wasn't sure if it helped, but she was thankful that the goddess' touch was light enough that Thalia didn't feel intimidated or encumbered as she cried her fill.

"How have you done and carried this for thousands of years?" Thalia asked Artemis, her voice hoarse and breathless from all the crying. She must look a mess too and her eyeliner had definitely been ruined now. She found herself desperately hoping that Artemis had wisdom for this, the same way that she could show any of the girls a trick for wrapping a sprained ankle or building a fire over the snow.

"I am not mortal," Artemis reminded her. "Nor have I ever been. My capacity for pain is not, and never will be, anything like yours."

Thalia bit back a retort about how that must be nice.

"When I think of Zoë and the loss of her…" Artemis said, her eyes still looking up at the stars and the moon in a strangely reflective way. "Well, I think back to the life she led while she was with me. I think of the things she did that she wouldn't have done otherwise, of the friendships she forged, of the things that made her laugh, of the accomplishments she prided herself in… to me, those things are bright and beautiful enough for the pain of her loss to be bearable. I find that I have been able to break even on life and pain for most, if not all, of my hunters. That is how I have done this for thousands of years."

Thalia looked up at the sky again, at the constellation of Zoë. Not far from it, Cassiopeia zig-zagged across the sky with the tell-tale 'W' shape that made it a good first constellation to show new hunters, overwhelmed with the idea of using the sky to navigate. The jagged line, going down and then up again, reminded Thalia ever so faintly of the scar above Jason's lip. Maybe Cassiopeia could share and that could be where Thalia kept some of her hurt, in the sky.

"He tried to eat a stapler once, when he was a baby," she told the goddess.

"Did he?" Artemis did.

"He did," Thalia said. "Except he never knew that story. I got to tell Reyna—a girl in New Rome he had known since he was little. I got to see her laugh and I got to see him blush but laugh anyways."

"Tell me more," Artemis said.

And so Thalia did, starting to go through her memories of Jason to try and break even.

WC: 1968