Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Rick Riordan does.

A/N: I know, I know, I KNOW—I'm so incredibly late with this, and I throw myself at your knees and beg for mercy instead of whippings. You see, unfortunately enough, this huge wall rose before me whenever I clicked into the file of this story, and that wall was called—WRITER'S BLOCK. Finally, however, I managed to triumph over the formidable thing, and can present you with this.

So, I truly hope you can forgive me, and sincerely feel bad for keeping you waiting. I promise that I WILL finish this story. And I'll try to update sooner. -

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this. It's a bit…odd…but it's supposed to be, given their main opposition in this chapter.

Oh, and before you can begin, I must give a formal thanks and dedicate this (very long) chapter to two people: First is to a very close friend of mine who likes to be known as Isabelle, who is genius enough to suggest her favorite goddess as the main antagonist of this chapter, and spurred me to writing it again. Next is dear, dear Phyco Girl whose wonderful PMs, support, and great advice got me to pick myself up, out of writer's block, and keep going. This chapter wouldn't have been written without you guys!

Okay…sorry for the really long a/n. Without further adieu, here you go:

Chapter Eight

Claim

There is a bond between them.

Sometimes he laughs, sometimes she smiles, sometimes he frowns, sometimes she screams. They are standing at two ends of a double-sided mirror, staring into the opposite sides and seeing the reverse of their reflections—and yet seeing the similarities as well; subtle things that mingles and makes dual reflections whole.

There is a bond between them.

They fumble down roads without directions, sleep in plastic chairs on rattling busses, linger by nice restaurants and pretend to be well-off while they dine on potato chips before the flicker of a weak fire.

She is the loud, boisterous one; strong and brave and confident.

He is the silent, pondering one; solemn and protective and loyal.

She is the one who talks; painting portraits of a pretty world she once called home—a world that was empty—and he is the one who listens, sympathizing, and holding his own secrets to his heart.

He seldom mentions what has transpired in his lifetime before her, but trusts this girl and answers her every inquire truthfully; he wishes, even tries, to be as open as her, but somehow his emotions are timid ghosts, shying away from exposure, and try as he might they cannot be described.

He struggles with his memories and she knows it: knows it by the way his eyes glaze when he murmurs something of yesterday, by the way his face goes rigid when she asks certain questions and receives only short, enigmatic answers.

She knows it by the way he tries to tell her things—random blurts of "my mom used to sing" or "she was married to a man I didn't like"—but the words always catch in his throat and he can't say them as her eyes find his face. She knows it is not because he feels no connection to her, but because his soul has been damaged and sealed shut, making it difficult for him to express the feelings he so desperately wants to convey.

The fact that he tries means there is a bond.

It doesn't matter. She understands him without words; feels the heaviness of his loss without the spoken explanation of it. She is the one capable of speaking of what happened, and though he strives to unleash his own past, he is unable. It does not dampen the closeness that ties them together; rather, she thinks it strengthens it.

One look into his eyes and she knows all she needs to know.

Silent, he is the first thing that has been steady and constant in her life, always there, always protecting.

And, without words, he tells her that she is the same for him.

He woke from a recurring nightmare.

In his dream, Luke sat once more on the floor of his kitchen, only this time long chains stretched from slots in the walls to the manacles locked around his wrists, coming from all directions, like the threads a spider weaves for its web.

The manacles themselves were old, rusted things, though try as Luke might they would not shatter, and his attempt to free himself only chafed his exposed skin, leaving bloody patches.

He remembered how the red of the wounds shone so brightly in his dim quarters, and how the fact worried him, because somehow he thought the lurid hue would attract some horrible visitor.

It did. Out of no where, Lucas seemed to slide from the shadows, dressed in odd, old-fashioned garb he never wore in real life: a stiff, high-collared jacket with a crimson jewel at his throat, the delicate chain of a watch leaking from his pocket, and dazzlingly silver gloves on his hands.

The boogieman. In his dream, Lucas was the boogieman.

It was only then that Luke realized his name had been carved all along the kitchen walls—in large, jagged letters almost akin to his mother's suicide note—and as Lucas slipped out the slender, white knife, a fit of unparalleled terror seized him. He thrashed and gnashed his teeth in agony, yanking on the chains, screaming in foreign tongues he never spoke before, ancient words, power words—

"Resurrect me, Father, resurrect me! Break the chains of shame and mortality and cleanse my soul of its scabs…..bring forth from the grave your most unfortunate child; resurrect me, Father, before I fall to sinners and demons….."

These words, in another language.

But there was only a death-silence that surrounded Luke, filled with a horror so thick it sucked all the air from the room, from his lungs, magnifying his senses tenfold: he saw every acute angle of his drear prison, smelt the must and cobwebs, heard the steadied shuffle of Lucas's feet.

But as the alleged "boogieman" reached him, wearing a smile that was impossibly cracked and demented, the knife held high, an erratic shiver ran across the room, and he felt the cool fingers of his mother touch his neck. (For, in his nightmare, he did feel—no matter how many skeptic looks might be cast at the idea.)

There she stood before him, a splendid figure in white robes; her hair swinging about her face like a veil of reddest wine. Her pale skin was unscarred and unmarked with any abrasion or slight bruise that once mottled it in reality: she was clean and breathtaking, a string of pearls around her neck, glittering and bright.

The world around them froze. Lucas stood still like a statue.

He called out to her, in that same, foreign tongue, but she merely laughed with a voice like music; Luke noticed he could not meet her eyes, no matter how desperately he tried, wishing to see the color of orbs no longer polluted with hopelessness.

"Silly boy," she sang, throwing her fabulous shower of hair behind her. "Make me a boat where the smiles are everlasting, and the people a dream. Make me a ship full of paradise, and call me a princess. Then chain me to the front of it, so that I may never leave. Chain me to the front of it….so that the Kraken mightn't get me….chain me…to….paradise…"

She began to shimmer—like a beautiful reflection in a pool disturbed by a stone flung by a mischievous child—and Luke saw the threads of her shiningly white gown fade.

He screamed out to her again, but her laugh rose in high cadence, and when she held out her wrist to him, he saw the ugly line she slashed across it, rough and disturbing, curving slightly with blood caked in its corners. It was the only thing that spoiled her perfect image, the only string that tethered her to the horrors of life.

And it was his fault, he suddenly reasoned, his fault that this blemish should haunt her…

As Luke's eyes fell upon it, her face went rigid, and a shadow of her former self flitted across her countenance, darkening lovely features. She brought the wrist up to her face, and despite his pleas, pressed it against her eyes, smearing her lids with the blood.

"Make me a paradise…" she murmured again. "Call me a princess…fill it with dreams…"

Suddenly, the kitchen door was blown open, and with it the most glorious light ever to grace his eyes flooded in, a halo of purest white and deepest gold, dancing and swirling across his lowly prison, painting it with hues of heaven.

Outside the door, he caught a glimpse of many wondrous things, but mostly the spires of a palace on a mountain, and a flick of winged shoes running by. At the sight, tears blurred his eyes, but his mother seemed unaware of them. The light was wrapping around her, like gentle arms, pulling her in.

Luke cried again for her to save him, but as her face turned sharply towards him, there was a cruel beauty sketched into it.

"Silly boy," she cackled. "I don't need you anymore. Look at what I've got? Look at this! A palace on a mountain…Why do I need you?"
And with a flash of cold, hard light, she vanished completely, leaving him to dwell in the dark, miserable, wretched quarters of his kitchen, caught like a spider's prey in a web, with Lucas—alive once more—plunging his knife downward through the shadowy air—

Which was when he woke up, gasping and sweating.

Presently, Thalia's grinning face blotted out the canopy of stars and night-sky stretching overhead.

"Dreaming again, sunshine?"

Luke groaned, rolling over on his side, attempting to harness and control the wild thing beating around in his chest like a crazed animal. Even through the shroud of dream-like panic, he wished his heart would stop falling into such fits: Thalia had to hear the erratic poundings it gave way to at night. How could she not? It must have been the loudest sound in the world.

But the girl only looked mildly concerned as her vivid gaze swept over him, pushing chunks of ragged hair off her brow in one swift motion. Slight worry somewhat faded the amusement on her face, but still the expression clung to her features.

"Did I wake you up from a really good one?" she questioned at length, her tone a bit more suspicious.

Luke let out a long breath and a laugh, sitting up, a feeling of guilt brushing over him at not answering right away. He didn't like to trouble her, even if she was good at making light of almost any situation.

"Yeah, a great one," he muttered sarcastically. "You and me were living on this huge cruise ship chock full of food and clothes and all that other stuff we're running low on. We had servants who did whatever we wanted and no monsters ever came after us."

Thalia snorted, throwing her head back in a gesture of hilarity.

"If it was so wonderful, how come you woke up horrified?"

"The boat sank," Luke answered promptly.

Thalia unleashed a torrent of laughter at this, loud and barking, and proceeded to stumble towards him on her knees, punching him in the shoulder.

"You're a dork, you know that?" she said warmly.

She lay down in the long grass of the meadow they were camping in, staring up at the moon, which peeped like a mischievous half-smile from behind a pocket of cloud. Luke smiled down at her, the visions of his nightmare receding into nothing as her voice fell over him, real and comforting.

It had been his lone stroke of fortune in the black, haphazard stream of misfortune that soaked his life—stumbling into this tough, bitingly sarcastic, secretly kind-hearted girl. Thalia was his first and only friend, and seemed able to soothe his nerves no matter how badly they were shattered.

"So, seriously," she finally spoke, after her breath had caught up with her. "What were you dreaming about? You looked freaked-out."

Luke sighed, casting a sullen gaze toward the remnants of their camp-fire, now merely a blackened pit full of dead embers.

After traveling with Thalia for about three weeks, he had grown closer to the girl than he had to anybody in his entire life—unless you counted his mother, but that relationship was stressed and disturbed, too one-sided, and could not be explained in such simple terms.

Thalia was the type of person he could talk easily with, let his guard fall slack around; when he was with her his face was all smiles and his voice full of laughter, his eyes light and pleasant. Nothing about her was feigned or pretend: she was a blunt person who said what she meant and had no issue with allowing herself to be heard. He trusted her for that. There was never any condescension in her gaze when she looked at him, never any slight sneer when he mentioned where he'd grown up, despite the chasm that gaped between their social ranks. He relinquished to her ideas and opinions he often kept silent, insecure how another might react to them, and sometimes even ventured to territory as delicate as emotions, which were phantom-things he normally kept hidden beneath a mask of inscrutability.

And yet, in the face of all this, he could not tell her what perhaps marked his identity more than anything else: the abusive cycle that existed at home, his suicidal mother, his demented stepfather. He wanted to tell her, even tried, but the words always stuck in his throat and he could not clamber over the mound of discomfort that reared before him at the challenge. Those things were too scarring, imbedded too deeply into his soul. They shied away from the light of conversation, pleasing themselves to prowl around his nightmares and haunt his sleeping hours instead.

Simply, he did not know how to talk about what had transpired—was not sure if he would ever be able—and was afraid that, somehow, the information might pollute the wonder of this newfound friendship. Luke didn't want to connect the horrors of yesterday with the glamour of today, for doing so would mean admitting it had happened, and its memory would lurk, unbidden, beneath their friendly excursions. Talking about it would be reliving it, and he was determined to put the past behind him, instead of dwelling on it with permanent bitterness.

He wished he could relay that to Thalia, but no words seemed capable of saying it.

"You know," he said vaguely in response to her question. "About my mom and stuff."

Thalia got the hint immediately.

"Oh. So you think we should start packing up? The sun's beginning to rise."

She pointed over to the horizon, where a ribbon of blood-red was glowing against the sheet of midnight sky.

"You in a hurry to go somewhere?" Luke remarked, reclining back into a bed of soft grass. "Normally you don't even wake up until its mid-afternoon."

Thalia glared at him. "I do not! Besides, it's kind of hard to fall asleep when you're thrashing around on the other side of the fireplace. Can't you ever just go to sleep like a good little boy?"

"Nah, not really," said Luke, a small smile creeping across his lips. "But that is pretty weird."

"What?" Thalia pushed herself up on her elbows, looking inquiringly at him from beneath glowering brows. "The fact that you can't lay still for a second?"

His grin widened. "No. The fact that you actually care enough to stay awake and watch me thrash around instead of sleeping."

She punched him again, only this time the motion seemed a little flustered and her face was more than a bit red.

"Don't flatter yourself," she scoffed. "Really, your looks made you so conceited."

By this point, Luke had becoming completely inured to Thalia's throw-about comments about his appearance; Luke hardly spared a glance at his reflection, but Thalia seemed to go through no pains in reminding him that he had a pleasant one. She almost always enjoyed finishing off a quip or tiny feud with some amused reference to it, probably because he was so baffled and awkward at the mentioning that she would double over in laughing fits. In fact, she would often trail out the joke so long that he was forced to snicker at it, however embarrassed and confused.

Now he simply ignored it, resigning to pack up.

"Well, I guess you're right about getting out of here. Hades seems determined to send hellhounds at us."

"Yeah," Thalia muttered, standing up. "You'd think he'd get a bit more creative and send something else at us. I'm almost getting bored—three weeks and only one type of monster!"

"Well, you're in luck," Luke said grimly as he rolled up the sleeping bags they bought with Thalia's credit card. ("It was an early birthday present! Honestly, Luke, stop looking at me like I'm a Fury in a wedding dress: lots of kids get credit cards for their birthdays!") "They haven't sent anything at us in a while—my guess is that we're heading toward something really dangerous and they figure they'll just let us walk right into it."

Thalia grimaced. "You're such a pessimist."

Luke shrugged, straightening up and stamping out the few sparks of red that jumped from the predominantly dead fireplace.

"You don't think it's possible?"

"Oh yeah, it's possible," she grumbled. "It's just also pessimistic."

Luke grinned in response.

They shouldered their packs and walked onward, unaware of the soft hisses of laughter that followed them in their trek, and painfully oblivious to how right Luke's assumption had been.

--

They had been traveling for about an hour when the stranger found them.

After camping in an open field, they had moved out to discover themselves in the midst of long, sprawling country-land, laden with thickets of forest and rocky lanes cobbled between green plains. The whole area was devoid of any buildings, and the lack of population commenced an eerie silence that settled over everything like a fog. Normally, Luke relished the idea of solitude—one less pair of eyes to scrutinize him—but even he found the complete emptiness of the land disturbing. For miles all that was available was the tall, dark bodies of trees and swaying stalks of grass: he was certain they had stumbled in the wrong direction or accidentally slipped into some preserved Virginian land.

"Who's consulting the map?" Thalia would bristle at such comments. "I've gotten us this far, haven't I? We're almost to the border!"

Still, Luke could tell the utter desolation of this place unnerved even her firmly-rooted spirits. Her electric-blue eyes shifted back and forth swiftly and suspiciously across the grounds.

The stranger seemed to melt, unnoticed, from the shadows into their view. They had just passed a dense huddle of trees, and she literally skipped through the bramble towards them, laughing all the way.

"'Lo, lo, hello!" she chimed in a high-pitched, ecstatic voice. "What are you doing out here, all by yourself? You must be lost! Yes, very lost indeed! Why don't you come by the Lady's house? She will tell you which way to turn!"

It was Thalia who heard the cries first, pausing mid-stride and tugging on Luke's sleeve to halt him. She nodded back to the stranger.

The quickest, probably most childish thought to enter Luke's mind upon seeing her was Little Red Riding Hood—for she was a small girl, with rosy cheeks and round eyes, her face an innocent oval shrouded by a red hood. The crimson cape fell over her tiny frame the exact same way Luke imagined Riding Hood's would, and the dark curls tumbling from beneath the cloak completed the picture perfectly. She was talking in a flourish of hand gestures, her eyes radiant and her mouth a blur:

"Yes, the Lady will certainly know what to do with you! Nothing is ever boring with her—she makes sure nothing is as it seems. Come; come have tea with the Lady!"

The stranger gibbered excitedly, and on any other occasion Luke would have steered clear from such uncannily high spirits—there was something odd about this everlastingly cheery girl, so like a picture in a storybook, inviting two raggedy-looking children she didn't know into her "Lady's" home.

And who is this Lady? His thoughts muttered skeptically. Who in Virginia goes by the title of "Lady" anymore?

But something about the girl's eyes entranced him: they were like smooth, motionless pools of water, crystal-clear and very settling. A pleasant haze spread across his mind as his gaze found hers, and any of his recent doubts were banished. Was he so jaded that even an endearing little girl posed as a threat? Besides, this Lady sounded quite interesting, quite fascinating; nothing was ever dull with her, and how he hated to be dull.

It was only then that he realized how monotone his life had been till now—a predictable string of events, boring details of alcoholism, abuse, suicide, escapes from a poverty-stricken home…how very trivial, how….

What am I talking about? There's nothing trivial about those things—their very bad, serious things. And I'm not dull, I'm a half-blood, and –

A half-blood! The haze that this giggling girl's gaze intoxicated him with clamored at the word. Half-blood! Demigod! It was a glint of interest, of capricious potential, in his suddenly boring, humdrum existence. Exciting things happened to gods, after all, and they made their children do exciting things too. Perhaps this Lady could make him interesting, and then he could bear the mantel of half-blood proudly. Perhaps she could dab some color to his grayed-out portrait.

Expected, expected. Everything so far seemed tiredly expected, except for this Lady—

No, Luke mentally shook himself. You're acting crazy. You and Thalia have to get to Half-Blood Hill, and we'll never do it if….

Half-Blood Hill. What an ordinary place for demigods who wished to be ordinary. Even the name was boring, hackneyed—Half-Blood Hill, a haven for half-bloods…

It's not boring, it's safe, he struggled to think. We need to get there soon. And this little girl seems weird—why would she talk to complete strangers? And the things she's talking about…not normal…

But she was just friendly. Just a friendly, warm-hearted little girl who said interesting things. Normal wasn't interesting, so why should she talk of normal things? And she just wanted to help them, after all. What was wrong with that? Nothing. And the Lady. The Lady the girl spoke about was interesting…

Well, we are lost, Luke finally relented, and this Lady seems capable of giving us directions. We need to reach Half-Blood Hill as soon as possible.

He never noticed how glazed Thalia's eyes were as they turned to him, but then she never remarked how equally fogged his own were.

"She'll give us directions out of here," he said numbly to her.

"And maybe she'll give us some supplies," Thalia answered.

"Yes!" the girl chuckled and clapped. "The Lady will make things fun and extraordinary. She always does. Come with me—to the Lady!"

The child nestled herself between them and grabbed a hand on either side, marching brightly back into the wood as they passed. She kept skipping and laughing as she jostled them forward, between slender shoots of trees, tangles of weeds, and low-hanging branches.

"Almost there," she kept saying, and Luke's heart beat excitedly at the announcement. Finally, something colorful and enthralling would take place! How dull were hellhounds and Hades and other monsters!

And then they stopped at an edifice so twisted and warped it almost startled Luke out of his haze.

It was a lopsided, weirdly-constructed building, with a foundation much too small and brittle to support its cumbersome top—yet somehow it did. The lower levels of the house were made completely of stained glass, shimmering in dark shades of red and blue and green; it looked very much as if the shards had been balanced against one another, with no panes to hold them in place, but never did the delicate walls teeter, even in gusts of wind.

The house spanned out wide as it jutted upward—a haphazard array of blackened spires, red-brick chimneys, stone gargoyles and ornate terraces. Each piece of construction was thrown in randomly, so that no real order seemed to exist. On one end of the roof—(which in some places had tiles, in other places wood, and in some spots complete gaps)—a chipped birdbath stood perfectly still on a slant. A cone-shaped structure stuck out awkwardly at the side of the building, a dim, triangular window set into its steel surface.

The front door, however, looked entirely ordinary. Just a charming, unpainted slab of oak with a brass knocker and a doorknob: a little sign dangled over its face, the strings suspending it nailed into the wood.

In spidery, opulent words, the sign read: Welcome to the House of Chaos.

Too bad dyslexia made it impossible for either demigod to decipher that meaning—and too bad the Lady who resided within it knew exactly that, therefore made certain it was in English, rather than the ancient Greek symbols so much easier for them to comprehend.

"Uh…what does that say?" Luke asked confusedly, gazing up at the sign.

The little girl giggled. "It says welcome!" she chimed.

"What's your name?" Thalia suddenly shot at her. "Who are you? Why are you taking us here?"

For a moment, a dark shadow seemed to pass over the girl's sweet face, so that the calm pools of her eyes began to stir like wild oceans. Then her features lightened, and the innocence that painted them returned.

"I was Orianna," she explained cheerily. "But that is not important. I have not been Orianna for many years—she was very boring, and you would not have liked her. Now I don't need a name. The Lady fixed me. Come! She will fix you too—"

"But what do they call you?" Luke questioned. "It makes no sense for you to have no name, how does someone refer to you?"

The girl's face went blank and rigid.

"Sense is boring. We do not have sense here."

Luke blinked. He stared up at the confused, jumbled monstrosity that towered before them. A breath of wind suddenly blew through the trees, making the whole thing seesaw dangerously on its fragile bottom, though a moment ago the most powerful breeze could not budge it.

"You know, I think we can find our own way," he said slowly. "Right, Thalia? I don't think this is necessary…"

"Yeah," Thalia agreed instantly. "I've got a map. We're doing fine by ourselves."

"Just tell your Lady thanks anyway," Luke finished.

But as these words the front door swung open, quickly and easily, though its hinges creaked as if they had not been oiled for many years; a cool, pleasant voice drifted through the doorway, slithering into their ears and winding about their brains.

"Nonsense. You must come visit me. You must come in, little godlings…"

And with a shock that paralyzed his whole body, Luke fell limp and tumbled to the ground.

--

When Luke woke up, he was in a dungeon-ballroom.

There were no other words to describe the place: gleaming, marble floors stretched out before him, coated in long strips of velvet carpet. A dazzling chandelier of crystals and candles hung in the middle of a domed ceiling; men and women in luxurious outfits danced by gracefully.

But despite the perfect scenery, certain aspects of the room and its inhabitants made it demented, abnormal. In its very center sat an old, ugly scaffold, and on that stood a guillotine—its wide blade curved and gleaming, flecked with red spots and scores of rust. Tarnished chains hung from the walls—corroded iron meeting sparkling marble— fettering some of the fancily-garbed people in dreadful positions while others danced. Plenty other unfortunates were crowded in small, dingy cells set all about the room.

Even the ones that were dancing, Luke soon noticed, were not entirely free. Women covered shackles with the ruffles of their dresses, and men dragged iron balls on links that clung to their ankles.

Luke shook his head, bewildered and horrified. The rational part of his brain kept telling himself that he was dreaming, but the frightened part screamed that he was also a prisoner, trapped in a cell like these unnerving shadow-people.

He turned swiftly and found Thalia at his side, still unconsciousness. He shook her worriedly, anxious for her to wake.

"Thalia—come on!—we're in serious trouble!"

Blue eyes fluttered open, then widened in shock.

"Luke? What—what are you wearing?"

Luke looked down at himself, startled. Instead of his worn jeans and tattered shirt, he was dressed in a plush red vest with an ink-black jacket thrown over it. He wore polished shoes rather than scuffed sneakers, and a crumpled white flower had been tucked into his lapel.

It was a replica of what the men outside were wearing, vacant and grim, as they twirled women around the guillotine.

"I don't know," he said hastily. "But it doesn't matter. We're in a hell of a situation; we're trapped inside a cell—"

Thalia suddenly gasped, gazing up at him.

"That freaky girl! She put a spell on us and brought us to that weird house—we must be inside it now!"

She stood up abruptly, breathing heavily…and almost screamed when her eyes fell down upon her own garments.

Luke shot her a baffled glare, but a moment she stepped into his line of vision, and he understood. He had no idea how he could not have noticed it before, but then perhaps that shadows had hidden it from his eyes—or perhaps the apparel had just shimmered over her ordinary clothes while he was blinking. Anything seemed possible.

A flowery, white-lace gown clung tight to Thalia's frame, flooding in a wide sweep to her feet. Bejeweled bangles clattered on her wrists and a circlet of silver pressed against her dark tresses, which suddenly fell in a loose cloud around her face. The sleeves of the dress draped elegantly off her shoulders in that same, lazy fashion a princess's would.

Thalia was not very happy.

"WHAT am I wearing? Gods, HOW is this happening? Where are we? How'd we even get in here?"

She rattled frantically on the bars of their cell, then took to pacing around the cramped interior, groping at her hair and the crown, but it could not be moved off her head.

"We brought our bags with us when that creepy kid led us here. Someone must have taken them. We were tricked, of course—but who tricked us? Why would they lock us in here in weird clothes? Nothing makes sense."

"Exactly."

Both demigods whipped their heads towards the source of the noise, but no figure revealed itself: only the disembodied laughter of someone who sounded quite amused and rather insane.

"Nothing is supposed to make sense, my dear," the voice continued. "Sense is such a boring thing—but then, I guess your father wouldn't agree with that. Oh well! He broke his oath, and that was a pretty senseless thing to do, if I do say so myself. Senseless, but oh so interesting. You see? How dull your life would have been if your father was sensible—you wouldn't have had a life at all!"

A cascade of giggles broke out then, reverberating off the cold stone walls of their cell, colliding against their eardrums in an eerie, sickening ring.

The duo instinctively huddled closer, as if hoping to band together against a common enemy, even though they were both unarmed and clueless: the laughter continued to bounce around their cage, in a high, chilling cadence, when there was an audible pop, and two eyes appeared out of the darkness.

They were startlingly beautiful, although mismatched. One was a deep, rich, red-tinted brown, while the other shone a sharp green.

Luke's throat was dry. He thought his head might explode from all the jumbled, frantic thoughts racing across it. Eyes with no body? What was next?

But Thalia had stepped up to them, quite white in the face, but her expression also quite firm.

"Are you our captor? Why have you brought us here? Who are you? Show yourself!"

She stamped her foot heatedly against the floor.

The eyes rolled. "So brave and noble, just like your father—booorrrriiiing! But what about the trickster? His father never stops talking."

The vivid, different-colored eyes found Luke's face, and a pair of smiling red lips soared through the shadows, followed by a nose, then ears, then a fountain of straight, black hair. A sudden whirlwind took to the cell's stale air; a sound like the flapping of a dozen bird wings was heard, and in the midst of it a woman appeared, tall and slender, clad in a very modern-looking red dress with high leather boots.

The dress would have been completely normal if it hadn't been for the weird, misshapen symbols writhing across it.

"Do you know who I am?" she said crisply to Luke, her odd eyes pinned to his face.

His mouth was dry, but he opened it and his voice scraped against his throat, giving the answer. He was unsure how he knew it, but he knew it with powerful certainty.

"Eris. Goddess of Chaos."

Eris threw her head back in a torrent of vicious laughter.

"Oh, so you're quiet and intelligent! I'm beginning to think your Daddy lied to me—you're nothing like him, after all. An improvement, in my opinion, but then—" she was silent for a moment, her long finger tapping against her chin. "Do you see the dancing?" she suddenly inquired, abandoning all former conversation. "All my little toys are out there, in shackles and chains. I suppose you didn't expect that! No, nothing is ordinary around in my House." Her eyes glinted darkly. "Maybe I'll let you see the rest of it after I've finished playing with you."

"Eris—uh, ma'am," Luke fumbled hastily. "We…um, Thalia and I are kind of in a rush, we've sort of—uh—got to get to Camp Half-Blood…so…."

The goddess looked highly affronted. "Camp Half-Blood? Bah! My children aren't even allowed to go to that rinky-dink gathering of shacks—not that they want to go, that is! It's so boring and ordinary. Learn to fight, blah, blah, blah. Stay safe from monsters, blah, blah, blah. Alright, so most of my children are in mental institutions instead, but that's only because they see the world differently, better, actually…"

She trailed off, seemingly uninterested, then resurfaced with a wild grin plastered over her red lips.

"Wouldn't lightening be so much better if it was green?" she said excitedly. "And wouldn't it be brilliant if, when it struck the earth, a tidal wave came instead of fire? And if rain was little spits of flame instead of water? Oh, I've been inspired!"

She spun in a fast, perfect circle, her laugh tinkling through the air like the clatter of a million silver bells. When she turned back to them, her eyes seeking their faces, an odd sensation bombarded Luke.

A sudden recklessness, an urge to do something different and interesting; he was drowned in a boredom that was near close to insanity, a lack of interest so strong it smothered him like a thick woolen blanket. His blood sped rapidly through his veins and his heart pounded in a wild, random rhythm. Everything was so dull, so ordinary, so expected. His fingers twitched in anticipation. He needed excitement. He needed—

Chaos…

"We want to play," Thalia was saying wildly. "We want chaos. Please, Eris, we're so bored—"

Mismatched orbs glittered. "I hoped you would say that. Why don't you go dancing with my other toys? Just be careful," The green eye winked. "I plan to make it rain—you know, interesting rain, not the wet kind. And indoors. Wouldn't rain be so much better indoors? Oh, and first you better get through these."

She held up her slender hand and snapped her fingers, swift and precise. The black bars of their cell began to twist and writhe, struggling against the dirty cell-floor and ceiling; suddenly they broke off completely, hissing and sputtering, the top swelling into the shape of a head, protruding snout, and bulging eyes. The bottom half shrunk until it formed the point of a tail, thick and flexible.

The bars had turned into snakes.

"Have fun," Eris crooned. And with a flash she disappeared.

Both Luke and Thalia backed up against the wall of the cell, staring horrified at the writhing mass of snakes. There had to be at least fifteen, and they were all solid, long, terribly powerful-looking things, snapping jaws full of jagged, venomous fangs.

"You had to ask the Goddess of Chaos to play, huh?" Luke muttered frantically as they pressed themselves as far away from the creatures as possible.

"It was Eris's aura!" Thalia exclaimed. "It's chaotic—just like her. So it makes people around her feel chaotic."

Luke gritted his teeth. "So, she just wants to watch us die in her screwed-up funhouse? We have no weapons, and I don't even want to know what 'interesting' rain is to her—"

At that moment a snake struck, and Thalia kicked it away anxiously from his ankle with a rough jive of her foot.

"Thanks," Luke barely had time so say before stamping on the head of another. The thing crumpled the moment his heel connected with it—and Luke was surprised to feel it reshaping beneath his shoe, flattening and hardening. He spared a rapid glance downward and found that he was now standing on a sword rather than the corpse of a serpent.

"Thalia! The snakes become weapons if you kill them—"

"So pick it up!" she shrieked while batting away three snakes with another kick. Despite the situation, Luke couldn't help but admire her skills: even when forced into a fancy gown and high-heel shoes, Thalia's reflexes were still amazing, her movements fluid and dangerous.

He jabbed at another snake with his heel, then bent down swiftly to retrieve the sword. Once again, as soon as his fingers groped the hilt, he felt a rush of confidence and ease. The sword became an extension of his arm, swinging and cutting and swooping with all the grace he blundered through his life lacking.

Everything always felt so certain when he held a blade. Although Luke hadn't taken any formal lessons, he had been practicing with the weapon ever since he stumbled into Thalia, and progressing steadily. It was the only thing that ever came natural to him.

Besides him, Thalia had managed to kill two of the things, and was now sporting a thin, pointed spear.

"Once we get out into the ballroom," she was shouting over the din. "Something bad is going to happen—Eris won't make this easy—"

"No kidding," Luke retorted with a roll of his eyes. "The dancers will probably pull machines guns out of their coats and blow our brains out. Can't you pray to your dad? Maybe he can give us directions out of this place!"

Thalia bristled, poking her spear through the head of a striking serpent.

"You know he never listens—try yours!"

"I don't even know who he is!"

"It doesn't matter, just try!"

It would have been impossible for Luke to shut his eyes as an onslaught of hissing, sputtering, spitting creatures wound about his ankles, but nevertheless he pursed his lips in what he hoped was prayer-like reverence and attempted to speak to something he never before thought existed—a Greek god.

A shadowy, unclear image of the being began to form in his mind, as he slashed through a particularly fat serpent; there were no features, no mark of countenance, but the body was undoubtedly manlike, though taller and radiating with a power devoid in all humankind. A frown bent Luke's lips.

He knew that even the slightest inclination of a person like this should fill him with awe, but instead he only tasted an unwelcome bitterness in his mouth. Someone above humanity—all-knowing and omnipotent—and his mother just lying in a huddle, splotches on her dress that would dry to rust-colors—

Uh…hey, Dad, he struggled as he dampened his resentment. Hope you don't think I'm being presumptuous, asking for help when I don't even know your name, but we're kind of in a jam, and, uh….a little luck wouldn't be bad, ya know?

If anyone godlike parent heard his prayer, he was completely unresponsive. No spark of light or shock of revelation brightened their grave, warped scenario, and the next snake to lunge at him had hard, hungry eyes.

Luke plunged his blade through its neck, stepping a little further into the open, while its guts sprayed in a clatter of tin cans and old wrappers. (Now that both demigods were armed, Eris seemed content on the creatures bursting into junk of any shape and form.) Besides him Thalia was shrieking as a brown, fetid ooze splattered from a snake's ruptured body.

The two stood panting, sweating and hacking their way through the jungle of black snakes, remains of the creatures scattering around their feet in a scene of utmost paraphernalia—finally Thalia plunged through the opening, and Luke followed with a swift cut of his sword.

Now out of the dirty cell, brightly-garbed couples danced across the floor like flowers floating across a sparkling pond. Though all were as beautiful as carved dolls, the expressions riddled into their faces were severe and worrying; they held each other rigidly and danced with a somber slowness, no sound other than the scrape of metal balls on the floor and clanking manacles on their wrists.

Thalia let out a little breath, the spear poking out in front of her.

"Let's go," she murmured, her eyes sliding ever-slightly to the guillotine, which offered its bloody, rust-pocked grin.

Luke gripped his sword and took a step forward.

All at once, the ballroom darkened, and a terrifying flash lit up the high, domed ceiling; a streak of purest-emerald cracked through a beam like electricity, so that the broken wood fell, slanting, dripping wet rather than sizzling.

"What was it Eris said?" Luke asked nervously as the couples twirled, quite comfortably, around them. "Something about lightening that makes tidal waves and rain made out of fire?"

Thalia paled but held her spear erect.

"Something like that," she answered as shadows gathered around them, and a single spit of flame tumbled from the paneling high above. It landed on the chestnut curls of a woman, whispering softly; but rather than pat it out, the woman just gave a little shake, and some light seemed to come to her emotionless eyes.

"Hmm," she sighed in a voice that carried throughout the entire chamber. "What a long time I've been sleeping. Now that I'm up, I must search for the Princess. She needs to be crowned, after all."

Luke didn't like the sound of that.

"There's a doorway over there, let's take it," he hissed in Thalia's ear, fingers closing around her wrist. He had a creeping feeling that he knew who the princess was, and an even more unpleasant hunch that he knew what crowning meant.

"You don't need to hold me—" Thalia snarled, but at that moment there was another horrible snap of electricity, swift, bright, and flashing; so fast it left a ghost of green spots to dance before their eyes. A huge wave of water swept over the dance-floor, upturning at least a dozen men and woman, all who brushed dripping hair out of their eyes and murmured something that sounded distinctly like "princess" and "crowning."

Luke tightened his grip firmer on Thalia's wrist and wheeled his way through the mass of vacant, twirling couples.

If the skies could rip open indoors, that was what was happening now—there was an awful ridge in the ceiling above, the darkness bunkered on either side, and thousands of sullen red embers poured forth from it, in a hot, glittering sheet that fell sideways through the ballroom, dousing the marionette-people in flames that stirred them from their trance.

Somehow, the fire-drops kept conveniently missing their own bodies, but Luke was aware, with oddly remorseful clarity, that burning was the least of their worries where Eris was involved; it was too ordinary a death, after all. She needed things chaotic, and what could be more chaotic than having a herd of Victorian dancers maul them for—

"Look, the Princess! I've found the Princess!"

There was a scream and a flurry of pinkish skirts, while a man in a smart tweed jacket disentangled himself from his partner and whirled around, clamping his hand on Thalia's shoulder.

Luke's fears were confirmed.

"Thalia—Eris made you the princess because you hate them; you have to get away, I'll hold them off—"

There was a flash of metal and Luke drove his blade down at the man's arm, which, as he expected, exploded upon contact in a cloud of powder—these finely-dressed couples were not real people at all, but mindless dolls that followed the capricious whims of the Goddess of Chaos.

The limp arm of the puppet hung resolutely on Thalia's shoulder, and she shook it off in a jerky, shivering motion.

"Are you kidding?" she finally answered as they fought their way through the crowd; it seemed the slightest flame or drop of water brought new purpose to the drones. "I'm not going to just leave you here! Who do you think I am?"

"I was hoping you were intelligent, they won't come after me; they're too concerned with you—"

"Right now, but you know how quickly Eris gets bored!"

But the argument could go no further: they were inching steadfastly towards the large, ornate doorway that sat on the other end of the room, and with each falling of blade or spear, the things garbed in human clothes burst into dust. Progress was slow, tiresome, and agonizing, but Luke thought that with keen concentration and perseverance, perhaps they would make it.

Of course, Eris could not have her playthings finish so easily.

Another crack of green lightening ensued, splashing both demigods and puppets in a huge lurch of water, knocking them cleanly off their feet and forcing liquid down their throats. The blade slipped through Luke's fingers as he emerged, gasping and sputtering, his blonde hair flopping before his streaming, wild eyes. The fine garments he wore now clung to his body, drenched and icy against his skin; his throat burned from the fluid that gushed down it, as if parched rather than quenched.

Nothing makes any damn sense, I'm sick of this nonsense—

His eyes were blurred and tearing, so that he could not see, and the world commenced to haze and whirl around him in a cacophony of prying fingers, painted faces, emerald flashes and tiny dots of flame. Then there was an outraged cry, and Luke's eyes adjusted enough to see two hard-faced women dragging Thalia, quite stubbornly, towards the center of the room. Her spear lay three feet from her.

Luke's eyes lifted with horror to the spot they were yanking the bestrewn, sopping, waterlogged girl: his heart fell in cold terror. It was as he expected.

The blade of the guillotine was beginning to swing like a slow, graceful pendulum, its wide, severe grin blurring with the motion, first moving tiredly, than obtaining speed as it swayed, swift, swifter; it became a smear of silver, blood-red, and brown-rust.

Luke charged, grappling for his sword, but a throng of the hatefully somber, white-cheeked marionettes crashed upon him, enchaining him with arms that should have broke as easily as porcelain, but held as firmly as iron. He screamed out, thrashed, kicked, even bit—but the gloved hands, like feathers on his skin, kept him rooted to the spot, even as the dead lips of a puppet met his ears, whispered into them—

"Prince cannot save the Princess: no, not in this fairytale. In this fairytale, the Princess must be crowned, the Princess must be crowned…"

"THALIA!"

His heart had exploded, his every nerve was strained and shattered, his brain had ceased to function, frozen in a numb horror. He could not see this, could not hear it, could not understand or even fathom bearing it. The dread crept into his body like a cold trickle, poisoning it, tarnishing his soul with stains that no amount of time could wash out. If it happened, if he was forced to watch, as even now his eyes stood transfixed and opened—

Oh, please, Zeus, if you really are Thalia's father don't let this happen to her. Don't let it come true—please—please—she doesn't deserve it! Would you truly allow Eris to cut off your own child's head in some sort of warped ceremony? Please, save her—save her—I'm too weak, but I'll keep trying and I'll do anything—

There was chanting now, low and mysterious, rising like a dark cloud from the very depths of the Underworld. It was a haunting, unholy, unwholesome mixture of notes that drove into his heart like a stake.

I'll do anything; I'll suffer, I'll die—

He heard murmurings all around him, soft whisperings, Thalia's screams loud as she moved, but they would not turn her loose, no matter how skilled her assaults; they were immune unless she had a weapon, and her spear lay abandoned on the marble. He could not reach it for her, could not throw her the sword that had slipped from his grasp.

Anything, please, anything…

"The Princess will be crowned. The Princess will be crowned, as the Lady does command it."

ANYTHING, ANYTHING—

There were tears in his eyes, and blood in his mouth from biting down so hard on his lip before screaming. It tasted metallic, sultry: like true bitterness dripping down his throat. The spits of fire had stopped falling, the emerald lightening had ceased, all dance was finished and the Goddess of Chaos's dolls stood, watching, while he attempted to tear himself from them to save her.

Suddenly, an odd shadow overcame Thalia's face, and her fingertips sparked. Her screams died in her throat as she drew a ragged gasp, then proceeded to clench her white fists tightly.

A surge of brilliant, crackling, natural blue lightening surged from her palms, arcing in powerful streams and obliterating her captors on either side. They disintegrated in wisps of white powder, beautiful gowns falling in a heap of autumn-colored fabric: they sizzled loudly in the damning silence that slammed down on the ballroom.

The fingers slackened their hold, the chatter of the puppets ceased; Luke ripped himself free of them and stumbled forward, stooping to grab his sword as he ran, Thalia still examining the daggers of light that lanced up and down her fingertips. She touched the nearest doll and it broke instantly, in a cloud of dusty plaster.

"THALIA!" He did not notice the tears in his eyes.

"Luke, its okay, look at this!"

She displayed her ten fingers to him with wild fascination, each digit laced together with fine threads of lightening; the hue matched her eyes exactly.

"I know, I know!" Luke shouted back, still weeping despite himself, his heart fluttering in a nervous, half-relieved, half-tormented beat. Had it been any other moment, he would have wiped the tears quickly and been ashamed of himself for shedding them, but now he did not even know they flowed. "Let's just get out of here—please!"

All Thalia's shock and fear seemed to have drained out of her with the discovery of this new power, but at the desperate urgency in his voice, and a slight glance to his face, she resumed a serious countenance and fought her way towards him. The marionettes fell silently and easily at her touch, almost as if she were the Angel of Death, catching their lives with a single drag of her finger.

They tore through the remaining puppets quite easily now, who, rather than clamoring angrily over losing the jewel of their precious ceremony, endeavored to becoming gloomy and lifeless once more, though Luke did not know why: some even fell back into their grim embrace and began to dance once again.

They reached the doorway; Luke clutched Thalia's wrist very tightly as they ran through it, into an odd, zigzagging hallway that seemed to yawn on forever, and with portions so awkward it almost hurt to look at. Some lopsided portraits hung on weird walls crawling with ivy, displaying men with no faces and cross-eyed women with no hair.

"Anything could be a trap," Thalia muttered as they slowed their pace, glancing around.

Luke could only nod. His heart was still thrumming erratically from how close he had come to losing the best friend he ever had, the only friend he ever had, and definitely the most important—what would he have done if he lost her? If he had found her withered and broken the way he found his mother, the only other significant feature in his life? Would he have faded from existence also? He thought it very possible: he had already lost one attachment, he could not lose another. He resolved to be stronger—to make certain it never happened again.

He clutched the blade firmer as Thalia yanked her arm out of his grip.

"Honestly, Luke! I don't need you holding my hand for everything!"

He glanced to her, bewildered, and she looked a bit flustered by her own words. Somehow, the expression made a shadow of his former composure pass once more across his face.

"It was your wrist, not your hand," he grumbled, wiping a line of sweat off his brow. "And I just wanted to make sure none of Eris's weird puppet-people got at you again."

"I can take care of myself," she replied stiffly, turning a blue eye upon him. "Obviously."

As if only just realizing it, Luke jerked a hand to his cheek and hastened to wipe away the remaining moisture from his eyes, suddenly mortified, pretending he was rubbing an itch from tired, bloodshot orbs. A hollow, digging embarrassment burrowed into his heart; he wondered how pathetic he must appear to her.

But Thalia was giving him an odd, pale sort of smile.

"Luke, its okay; really."

He just nodded absently, refusing to meet her eye. "Isn't Eris going to be mad that we escaped her screwed-up ballroom? Don't you think she'll come after us or send us something else?"

Thalia shrugged. "Probably, but who knows with her? She's chaotic, remember? Her moods and opinions swing so quickly that she forgets what she's talking about mid-sentence and moves onto something else. Maybe at first she wanted us to die, but by now she's probably changed her mind. Besides, isn't it more interesting that we got away?" She sighed and clenched her fists with reviving vigor. "I didn't even know I could do that—make lightening, I mean. What a time to discover a new ability, huh?"

She said it lightly and fondly, but Luke was serious when he answered.

"I prayed to your father when they caught me. I prayed—I prayed that he wouldn't let you die. I said I'd do anything, even die. I mean that, Thalia."

Thalia stopped moving altogether, turning towards him with a pensiveness that lit her eyes so gradually it was like a dim light growing faintly in illumination; a veil of lightheartedness falling slack off her face, revealing the true soul beneath. He thought he could see it fluttering away, sliding slowly: her jewel-eyes searched his face, and to anyone else the sight might have seemed ridiculous, with her in tattered princess garb and he dressed like a drenched prince, but to them the world had halted, and something unknown passed between them.

"Really?" she said at length, quietly.

He only nodded, she smiled, and the spell was broken: both laughed awkwardly and turned away from each other for a moment, examining the strangeness of this abode the Goddess of Chaos had constructed for herself.

They passed many chambers: some were filled with broken furniture, others completely upside down, with seats glued to the high, vaulted ceiling, and others that were in a state of such havoc that they would have been impossible to clean, with food and clothes and piled debris strewn over stained, knotted rugs. More than once, an eye blinked out of the wood, following them down their passage, at which Thalia stuck her tongue out at and hissed "mind your own business!"

They walked by one door that was slightly ajar, with a queer bluish light streaming through it in thin, slender rays. Thalia was instantly fascinated by it, especially because the rusted lock that hung on the doorknob gaped open, and she wondered fervently what had broken it.

"What do you think is in there?" she asked.

"I don't know," Luke responded immediately. "It doesn't matter; we got to get out of here."

But she ignored him, as she normally did when her interests were involved, and drew the door a little wider open.

It was a cramped closet filled with water, dark and deep and midnight-blue, which did not spill even a drop as the door swung on its hinges; a rather large octopus sat, suspended in the liquid, with its fat tentacles tangled and bulbous eyes sullen. It reached one, slippery, ink-stained arm out of the water towards Thalia, at which Luke raised his sword, and it withdrew the limb just as quickly, closing the door along with it.

"I told you not to open it," Luke remarked after a full silence of ten minutes.

"Yeah," muttered Thalia, who still looked quite bewildered and a bit disgusted. "You did."

They marched along the hallway without opening anymore doors.

"Ah," whispered a smooth, velvety voice after some time. "Silly godlings, silly playthings of mine: how do you expect to get out of my House without calling upon me?"

In a gaudy, rapid flutter of what seemed like multicolored bird-wings, Eris emerged before them, still swathed in her low-cut dress with the misshapen symbols twisting across red fabric; her high boots clicked with a loud and powerful sound against the wooden floor.

All at once, Luke wanted to scream at her, wanted to roar and rage and condemn her for the pain she so easily put them through, just for her own flyaway amusement: but the hot, angry sentiment leaked out of him just as fast as it leaped up, like an initial flame doused in water; besides an omnipotent goddess all feelings of resentment was forced to quell.

All at once, his nerves became jumpy once more, and that same edge of restlessness possessed him, urging him to try something dangerous, insane, chaotic...

He forced his thoughts to stay lucid as Eris's aura continued to antagonize him, fixing his thoughts on the goal—getting out—rather than straying to the whims a bewitching goddess.

"You did not answer my question!" Eris simpered with a toss of her pin-straight locks. "How do you plan on escaping the House of Chaos without assistance from the Goddess of Chaos herself?"

Thalia opened her mouth, but Luke answered first—

"We don't: tell us the way out."

As swift and sudden as rain-clouds gathering over a cerulean sky, her brows bent in a severe frown.

"Do you demand something of a goddess?"

Luke was unsure whether he imagined it or not, but Eris seemed to grow a few feet taller as her voice rose, towering like a carved, painted statue.

"No," he answered right away. "We're asking, pleading. We're too dull for your house anyway—we might ruin all your lovely chaos."

He felt Thalia's gaze incredulous upon him, but Eris's own countenance lightened and took on a fair, breezy air.

"Yes, you would be rather lost without me—and old playthings do bore me, after all. There are only so many games you can play, and now that you've finished this one, I might as well throw you out."

Luke tensed somewhat at this: those were not the exact words he was looking for. But Eris caught hold of his troubles and laughed at his worried brow.

"Oh—I won't kill you!" Her mismatched eyes slid discreetly to Thalia. "Perhaps, I would like to, but the Princess's daddy absolutely forbids it, and although war can be fun, I'm rather not in the mood to get him in a huff. Besides, after the Crowning Ceremony, I've deduced that you two are not suited for my House, as other children are."

A thought occurred to Luke, jolting and forceful.

"That—that girl!" he gasped. "What was her name…Orianna, or something? The one that brought us here—you tricked her into coming to your house, the same way you brought us. She's your prisoner!"

Thalia shot him a glare as his furious words, but the goddess did not seem in the slightest deterred by his accusations.

"Perhaps," she yawned idly, white fingers running through her curtain of black hair. "But Orianna was never meant for life at home, where she was smothered and shackled by dull, ordinary existence. As my most recent daughter, she has devoted her life to me, and makes an interesting decoration to my abode."

Thalia and Luke exchanged glances; it now seemed sensible that the little girl could bewitch them with the same haze that Eris's own aura intoxicated them with, and that she appeared so erratic and unstable. The daughter of the Goddess of Chaos, herself—she probably considered herself fortunate, special, unique, at being offered the opportunity to lay her life at her mother's feet, and exist in sole and constant servitude to the goddess.

A sick, crawling feeling knotted Luke's stomach.

Tools, he thought savagely. That's all we'll ever be to them—tools.

"Will you help us out?" Thalia was saying, her face composed in a mask of inscrutability. He was certain she was harrowed by his sullen expression, thinking it would offend Eris, and sought to relax his features, but it seemed almost impossible.

Your own father didn't even answer you, a voice hissed in the back of his mind, even while Thalia and Eris conversed. You prayed and he never listened…

"This conversation is tedious and tiresome," Eris suddenly moaned, cutting through his dark reveries. "I will let you go, only because I am bored of it," But her vivid, mingled gaze then fell on Luke, pinning him with the gravity of her stare: he saw a lot of things in those eyes: fires raging in the red-tinted brown, tornadoes in the wild, bright green. "But certain people should be careful, for though their lives many be anything but dull, they might find themselves mired in tragedy, and become quite…disagreeable, even to me."

He did not know how to respond to such a comment, though it sounded like a threat. Numbly, he offered her the sword.

Eris's eyes glinted. "No. Keep it."

And with a snap of her perfect fingers, a chasm gaped at their feet, and they fell through it, into the descending shadows.

---

At first, Luke assumed the Goddess of Chaos had decided to change her eternally-changing mind and dropped them into another demented, deathly obstacle for her own cruel enjoyment. But slowly, cautiously, his eyelids crawled upward and revealed to him the sight of green, star-shaped leaves, canopied over him with the great limbs of oaks.

He sat up immediately, rubbing his temples, and acknowledged that he was once again in normal attire—his worn, tattered T-shirt and the faded jeans that frayed at the ends, along with sneakers so overly used his toes were sinking into the literal soles of them. Besides him, Thalia began to stir, also clad in her purposely-torn pants and angry, punk-style shirt; all jewelry had promptly vanished and her hair was once more pulled into bristly spikes.

"Ugh," she groaned, looking about her with bleary eyes. "Couldn't Eris have shown us the front door? What is wrong with that goddess?"

A smile quirked Luke's lips, despite himself.

"Gee, I don't know, Thalia," he answered sarcastically. "Why don't you go ask the Goddess of Chaos what's wrong with her?"

It wasn't really that funny, but something about it made Thalia snicker, and the effect was contagious: soon Luke was chuckling to himself, then outright laughing, and after about five minutes the both had elapsed into fits of humor so great that tears sprang to their eyes. The two attempted to wheeze comments between gasps, but nothing said was intelligible, and it wasn't really necessary anyway.

They were hungry, tired, and shot from their encounter with an all-powerful goddess—but they had also fought, escaped, and returned to the safeguard of sanity, when they could have so easily been lost in the midst of chaos forever.

It was something to laugh about.

"Your lip is bleeding," Thalia said finally, wiping her eyes.

Luke stroked a finger across his lower lip and found a line of blood followed it.

"Yeah," he said vaguely. "I guess I bit down on it too hard back in the ballroom."

Thalia looked at him quizzically. "When did that happen?"

With the memory came a shadow, and the smile died from his expression.

"When I thought I lost you."

Thalia turned away from him, fiddling uncomfortably with the threads of her torn jeans; a silence fell around them, heavy and full of meaning, so that it became a trial even to glance at the other straight in the eye. After a few minutes, however, Luke heaved himself to his feet and noticed their bundles heaped next to a tree.

"Look! Eris gave us back our luggage, wherever she was keeping it…"

This coaxed Thalia out of her discomfort, and she proceeded to stand and help him shoulder the bags, grinning lightly and making idle jokes about his apparel back at the goddess's funhouse. Luke simply snickered back and countered with what Eris had forced her to wear during the stay.

About a two miles in walking (and it was a reassurance to see houses begin to dot the side of the road again, and regular mortals saunter about the streets), Thalia slung her arm over his shoulder, and at complete random, whispered—

"You're a great friend, you know that?"

The words touched down in his core, and Luke could not entirely comprehend the many feelings that rushed over him, closing up his throat, making it difficult to breathe. He let his lips form a genuine curve and looked at her without embarrassment, cocking his head and letting blonde hair fall adrift.

"You too, Thalia."

And quite gently, he placed his arm around her shoulder, as they continued to stroll into the outskirts of a little town, both thinking, in their own way, that no god or any other supernatural force could blight a friendship as beautiful and potent as theirs.

Crouched in the shadows, watching intently, was a small girl with blonde hair and a bronze knife curled between her fingers.

A/N: A-GASP! I wonder who THAT could be…sorry, I don't know why I'm feeling so sarcastic right now…lol. Well, there you have it: the chapter that took forever to write! If you caught hints of Luke/Thalia…this time it was intentional. I know in the last chapter I said I didn't want it, but the story seems to be leaning towards the pairing, and I've warmed up to it. Also, please REVIEW! It's the all-time remedy for a writer going through writer's block, ya know…-