Snowfall

Daylight Savings

"Seriously Apollo," Thalia groaned, tugging at his chains and scowling. "How did you manage to get here?"

"I thought I could take a few monsters!" Apollo protested. "I hadn't thought they'd be able to restrain my powers."

"Maybe next time don't underestimate your enemies," Thalia scolded him, taking out her daggers and cutting his chains off. "Now kill these fuckers, please."

"Your wish is my command," Apollo replied, bowing before yelling to Percy to close his eyes. The young god began to glow and Thalia shut her eyes, watching the flare of light from behind her eyelids. When she opened them again, all the monsters were dead and Apollo was normal.

"Thank you for rescuing me," Apollo said as Percy came and joined them. "But I should probably inform the council about this. They'll want to know that the monsters have access to godly chains."

"Yeah, so that no one else gets captured. Because we all know who'd have to go and rescue them," Percy complained, glaring at Apollo.

He raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, I didn't know! You can't blame me!"

Percy just sighed. "At least we know now. Alright, Apollo, you're off the hook. Shoo." The sun god wisely did as he was told.

Thalia moaned, flopping onto the ground. "Thank the gods that's over," she exhaled. "I'm not sure I could've taken another day of quest."

"I think that, after this, I am going to hide from the gods so that they physically cannot send me on another quest. I don't care if fucking Zeus is captured, I refuse."

"I'm with you," Thalia said, sitting beside him. "I never got a big quest like you did, but the side quests are starting to blur together I've been on so many."

"All because the gods can't take care of themselves," Percy sighed. "Seriously, can't you be responsible?" The sky rumbled in response.

"Doubtful," Thalia said. "When they can just get us to do it, why do they need to take care of themselves?"

"That's true," Percy responded. "Just use your slaves - sorry, kids."

Thalia laughed. "About right," she said. "They would be child abusers if they weren't gods."

"I never had a childhood," Percy answered. "I don't count."

"Did any of us really have childhoods?" Thalia asked. "I mean, I ran away before I could, as did half the camp. The other half were brought here before they could even be a teen."

"So a sort of childhood," Percy amended. Thalia chuckled, moving over to thread her hand through his hair. "Teenage childhood."

"Though did we really have a life beforehand?" Thalia questioned. "Most of us had no friends and were failing our classes."

"Athena kids weren't," Percy commented, leaning into Thalia's touch as she massaged his head. "They probably had straight A's."

"Yeah, well, they're all smartasses," Thalia replied, as if that changed everything. "They don't count."

"Annabeth?" Percy asked, closing his eyes from the bright glare of the sun.

"She's okay. Still a smartass." Percy chuckled quietly.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. "Hey, Thals?"

"Yeah, Perce?"

"What would life be like if we weren't demigods?"

"Oh, wouldn't that be nice?" Thalia said wistfully. "No wars with our biggest enemy being school and homework. Friends that were just as normal as us and no freaky powers to make us different. Normal parents and a loving family. It sounds amazing."

"The only problem is that I wouldn't be as close to my friends. We could never reach that same connection," Percy pointed out. "I like all my friends and how close we are. It makes a lot of this worth it."

"The losses almost make it not," Thalia exhaled.

"Don't think about who died," Percy commanded. "Think about who would've if they hadn't."

"Wise words, Kelp Head," Thalia said fondly, scratching at his scalp. "We should probably move."

"You're right," Percy sighed. "At least we'll be going back to camp."

"The sooner we go, the sooner we can get to camp," Thalia threatened, rolling away from him. He groaned at the loss of contact, reluctantly getting up.

"Race you to the nearest town?" Thalia asked, bouncing on her heels.

Percy smirked. "You're on!"