GRACE, thalia isabelle

[thalia grace]

thalia isabelle grace.
fifteen / twenty four ,, los angeles, california ,, lieutenant hunter - daughter of zeus ,, heterosexual ,, stubborn
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AN ALPHABET ON THALIA GRACE
by the amazingly intelligent luke castellan

A is for Alcohol.

If there was anyone that was against alcohol, it was Thalia. After her mother, Thalia wouldn't go near the stuff. I couldn't, either. She didn't pretend that drunken people on the street didn't bother her, and she didn't pretend that she would cross the street when there was a bar on the side that she had been on. She didn't pretend that it wasn't because of her mother, that she had this thing against alcohol. She didn't outright say it, either.

"My mom wasn't there for me, end of," she'd said, a really long time ago. "Yeah, mine wasn'e either," I'd said, and we'd left it at that. We were each other's family. We didn't need our dead beat parents, the godly ones or the mortal ones. Both were bad. Both did nothing for either of us. It didn't seem to do any good by mentioning parts of our past that we'd obviously left behind. But the one thing that Thalia couldn't leave behind was the twitch of her nose when she smelled the strong sent of liquor, and the way her eyes narrowed when she spotted a drunken person. Then again, she probably didn't even realize I noticed.

B is for Best Friends.

Thalia is the only person that I could call a best friend. Annabeth was always a little sister, and she could never be viewed as someone that was equal to me. No matter what Thalia ever did, no matter the two years of age difference that seemed so small back then but so big now, she would always take up that spot. We could finish each others sentences, though she thought that was stupid because we weren't twins. We knew what the other one was thinking, and that was how we seamlessly fought monsters together. We knew each others strengths and weaknesses, and still do, even through the passage of years. When it came to being best friends, I was probably the worst best friend she could ever get. Despite that, she was the best friend I could have ever gotten.

C is for Coke Can.

The one thing that we could both agree on was that Coca Cola was ten times better than Pepsi, or any other drink on the planet besides coffee. She and I would sit back, and clink cheers with our cans, and then take a gulp at the same time. It was wordless, her smirk and my quirked eyebrow. I'd never understand the smirk.

"What's that expression about?" I'd ask. She'd raise an eyebrow at me.

"What, you think I've poisoned your soda? I kind-of like you. Plus, you steal me food. We're good," she'd say. I think she was trying to sound reassuring, but her eyes were dancing, and I could tell she was teasing me.

It moved on from that, us drinking our cokes together, to sitting outside of the make-shift tent we'd construct when we found somewhere we knew we wouldn't have to leave too quickly for the night. We'd sit back against the wall, because there was always a wall, and we'd look up at the stars. I'd try to point out constellations, and she'd laugh at me because she thought that I couldn't find a real one to save my life. She was right - I couldn't - but I wouldn't say that. We'd clink cheers with our coke cans and talk about anything and everything in the darkness of the night with the dimness of the stars as the little light. We'd hear Annabeth snoring in the tent, that child-like snore she had, and we'd smile to ourselves, the expressions hidden by the cans as we took a sip, because she was happy and we left like maybe it was the one thing in both our lives that we'd actually done right.

D is for Death to Barbie.

Her favorite t-shirt had "Death to Barbie" written across it in Chiller font, with a rolling barbie head on it. It creeped Annabeth out, so she never wore it after Annabeth became part of our group. But before that? It wasn't unusual to see her with her black ripped jeans, dirty once-white-but-now-grey Chuck Taylors, her Death to Barbie t-shirt, and her leather jacket thrown over it. With her jet black hair spiked the way it was, combined with all that, she looked like a rebel - she was a rebel, a street kid, or as she called herself, "a danger to society".

When I asked her why it was her favorite, she raised an eyebrow at me. "You think I was the type of kid to play with Barbie dolls?" That was all I ever got.

E is for Eyes.

People say that eyes are the windows to your soul. Most people, normal people, think that these philosophers are spouting crap just to be known. With Thalia? It's true. She has these electric blue eyes, like blue fire, and they feel like they can pierce your heart just by looking at them. But if you look at them, and you know what you're looking for? You can see what she's thinking, how she's feeling ... she can hide her expression, she can morph it to what she wants it to be, and she can do it well enough not to arise suspicion. But the one thing, that she's never been able to change or hide, were her eyes. And while we were together, just the two of us, even with Annabeth and Grover joining our group, it was one of the things that I was most grateful for.

F is for Flight (or lack thereof).

You'd think that a daughter of Zeus would like to fly, or be in the air, at least. Not Thalia. Thalia has an intense fear of heights. If she's too high up in a building, even, she'll have a problem with it. She can't do roller coasters, she can't go on planes, and she can't go past the fourth floor in buildings. She would've never scaled the Climbing Wall at Camp Half-Blood, and she would have never been that child to go climb a tree just to fall out of it, because she couldn't touch the ground and her feet needed to always be on solid ground. The only time that there was an exception was when there'd be a monster she'd tackle, and even then, when she'd get back on the ground? Her left hand would be shaking.

G is for Giggle.

Thalia's laugh is probably the oddest, yet most beautiful, sound I've ever heard. She laughs exactly the same in every situation, except for the intonation. And that's what I've come to realize.

When she laughs sarcastically, you'll know. It sounds cut off, and not at all genuine, as if she's humoring you. Which she isn't, by the way. Before or after she laughs, though, she'll have something ready to throw at you, whether it be an insult or a blow that connects right with your heart, Thalia's always prepared for not only a verbal battle, but a physical one, too.

When she thinks something's cute, which isn't too often, - the first time I heard it was when I got whipped cream on my nose while eating a sundae, and the last time I heard it was when we found Annabeth in that Alley and everything got just a bit more serious cause we had a kid to look after and we didn't want to screw it up - it comes out as a soft chuckle, and her cheeks get a tiny bit red when she hears herself. It's as if she didn't mean for it to slip out, to make herself look less threatening, but it did - and she'll be embarrassed about it and pretend it never happened.

When she genuinely finds something, she'll come so close to snorting, but never does. It isn't too often that Thalia will genuinely laugh, because she's more into the habit of snorting, but when she does? It's infectious. There was once when we were feeding ducks at this pond we were cutting through, and she thought it was completely stupid that we were feeding ducks when we could barely feed ourselves. I told her to go with it. She almost took off a duck's head, and I ended up having to teach her how to feed them. When we were done, the two of us almost fell over laughing. It'll be the time I best remember hearing her laugh.

H is for Hunter

[/strike].

Hunter. Hunter of Artemis. Not even just a plain Hunter, either. Lieutenant Hunter of Artemis - whenever Thalia does something, she goes all the way. Of course she'd become leader of a band of immortal pre-teen girls that ran around killing monsters. She'd sworn off men, love, to get that position, to be in this group. To be a part of the Hunters of Artemis. Now, she's one of them and I doubt it'll ever change because when Thalia gives her word, she doesn't break it unless it's something that she really wants, or needs to change. What would Thalia do, fall in love? With whom? Could that person really make her break a sworn oath to Artemis herself? There was one person, one person that could've made her do that, but it's all in the past, and there's no chance of that working now. So she'll say in her silver camo, circlet on top of her head, running around and slaying monsters while everyone ages and moves on around her - and that's that.

I is for Insomia.

Thalia's never been able to sleep every night, at the same time, like everyone else. When I'd asked her why, when it had just been her and I, she'd given me a dark look.

"It's just the way I am. Don't tell me you're going to bail on me because I skip nights of sleep," she'd said, and gave me a look that said 'If you're even thinking about it, you're more of a wimp than I thought'. I wasn't ever going to bail on her, that hadn't been what I was going for.

"Don't you think it's healthier if you try?" She raised an eyebrow at me, not surprised.

"Don't you think it's healthier if you shut the hell up?" That had been the end of the conversation, and Thalia smirked because she'd known she'd won.

Over the years, it was easy to get used to the fact that sometimes she wouldn't sleep for five days, and then pass out for a straight twenty four hours, and something she'd sleep every night for three days straight and then go off on a weird tangent of days and nights for the rest of the week. It was untrackable, her sleeping pattern, since even she didn't know when she'd be able to sleep and when she wouldn't. But it wasn't as if it mattered - I was an insomniac too, maybe not ever to the degree that she was. We'd use it to our advantage, sitting back and looking up at the stars or traveling at night, doing all kinds of crazy things when we couldn't sleep and had nothing better to do. Nights were maybe the best time we ever spent together, because it was as if the darkness hid everything that was bad or wrong or not fixable for a few hours, and allowed us to act like the kids we could've been, once upon a time.

J is for Jason.

I never knew that Thalia had a brother. Jason, his name was. Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, a Roman and praetor to the Twelfth Legion. I'd found out when I'd been brought to Camp Jupiter, and only then. I'd thought that Thalia was an only child, and I'm sure that she had wanted it to appear that way. It was obvious that Jason didn't know he had a sister, just by the way he operated. It was as odd as it was nerve-wracking, knowing that Thalia's brother was here but that she surely hadn't spoken to him in years, maybe by even more than I could estimate.

"My house sucked. My mom sucked. My life sucked. So I got out, and did what I wanted to do," she'd said. I'd pretty much said the same thing. Neither of us mentioned our fathers, because neither of them had been in the picture enough to be deemed worthy of mention, even if it was to say bad things about them. She'd never mentioned a brother, never mentioned anything that would've led me to believe that her and her alcoholic mother hadn't been the only people running in their large California home.

When I had seen the amount of tally marks on Jason's arm, it was then I realized - maybe she hadn't wanted to talk about it because it was too painful to speak.

K is for Kid.

The first time I called her a kid, she kicked me in the shin. I told her that if she ever did it again, I'd never steal her another can of coke again. She believed me, and didn't continue with the abuse I so clearly didn't deserve, but she did make sure that whenever I called her a kid, I was thumped upside the head, unless she was highly irritated.

The second I really remember calling her a kid, she said she was ten times smarter than I was, and since my brain was the size of an ant, my opinion didn't count. We went on with our banter, and since were walking down the street, anyone that spotted us thought that we were delinquent kids arguing and acting like the punks we so clearly were - in their minds. I didn't mind - neither Thalia or I got embarrassed easily, and since Thalia's mom was a celebrity, Thalia was desensitized to people's opinions, judgmental stares, and bad attitudes. I just couldn't bring myself to care, because she was amusing when she was annoyed.

The third time I really remember calling her a kid, she pointed at Annabeth and told me that Annabeth was the kid, so I shut up. I remember Annabeth just looking up at me with a smirk on her face - she was only five years younger than Thalia, seven years younger than me, and she thought that that was barely anything while Thalia and I thought that the age gap couldn't get any bigger without hitting Middle Earth. She thought it was funny that Thalia told me to shut up, because when Thalia and I argued, Annabeth would sit back and watch, with the widest small on her face. After that day, though, I never called Thalia a kid. Even though I doubted she'd ever been one, just I'd never been one, to compare her to someone Annabeth's age or younger was too cruel, even if it was meant to be a joke.

L is for Lightning.

Thalia is a daughter of Zeus - meaning that she can manipulate lightning in seconds. She's always been strong, always been able to use her ability to her advantage, which is something that has always helped her out over the years, especially in fighting monsters. That's her literal connection to lightning.

There's also lightning that runs through her veins, that can't be literal but still is at the same time. When Thalia's determined to do something, there's no one that can change her mind. When Thalia has her sights set on something, there's nothing that can stand in her way of getting to that something. When she knows something, and she's certain she knows something, no amount of evidence will change her mind. When she fights, she throws her body, mind, and soul into the fight. When it comes to protecting friends, she has, and will not hesitate to, sacrifice herself to make sure they're safe. When Thalia feels the need to go somewhere, to do something, no matter of speaking will talk her out of it. When it comes to her hatred, there's nothing worse than having her target ready and waiting on your back. She will do anything she has to to keep those close to her safe and happy, and revenge isn't beneath her.

I say lightning because she strikes hard and fast, and leaves mountains of destruction behind when she's done. Once she's finished, she's finished for good, and won't harp on the past. When she's completed something, then it's over. If she's filed it to the back of her mind, rarely will it ever come back to the front of it. If Thalia was a piece of nature, she would be lightning - the two connect, because she already is.

M is for Music.

Thalia was one of those obnoxious kids that played their boom boxes really loudly. Even if she used a Walkman, and put her headphones in, you could probably still hear the music from twenty feet away. I was always surprised that she didn't end up deaf, at the rate she was going. And what she listened to? Wasn't kid stuff, either.

Heavy metal, rock, punk, or depressingly lilting music that she'd bop her head to. When we used to go into train stations, point at a place on the map, and then sneak onto whatever train was going there, she always had her Walkman with her. She got motion sickness, and as she sat on one side of the compartment, and I sat on the other, she'd lean her head against the cool window of the glass, stick her headphones in, and try to pretend like she was anywhere else but on that speeding train.

I loved trains. They could take you anywhere, and didn't expend any energy. All you had to do was sit there and do nothing. We'd plan out where we were going from that little compartment, where she'd keep one headphone in one ear and listen to me with the other, because if there was one thing she could do it was multitask. Music helped her focus, kept her on one topic because it kept the rest of her mind lost in the music, her ADHD mind not realizing that this was some subconscious solution to the fact that she was constantly hyper and moving from one topic to the other. It was only when I'd realized that this was how she worked that I stopped being offended that I only got half of her attention - I got half of her attention because I got all of her attention. And even if it didn't make sense to anyone else, it made sense to me.

N is for Never.

"Yield! You could never beat me, Luke."

It was true. If there was one thing that I couldn't do, it was beat her when it came to sword fighting. We'd trade victories when it came to verbal fighting, because she was just as sarcastic as I was clever, and she was just as sly as I was devious, and it was never certain who'd shut the other up. That being said, it wasn't the same when it came to her sword. Thalia could use it, manipulate it, as if it was an extension of her body. And the sword wasn't even her favorite weapon - her spear was, along with Aegis. That didn't mean that she couldn't beat me at my own game, though.

On that cliff, everything was riding on that victory. Things would've been so different if I had won, if I'd been able to convince her to help me. Maybe I wouldn't have died the first time around. Maybe I would've been able to stop things before I had to, before I had to sacrifice hers' and Annabeth's safety. Maybe I could've made everything better, and pretended like everything had never happened afterward. But I'd never been an optimist, and I wasn't a child - I couldn't blindly believe that one battle could have changed everything for us, for me.

When she kicked me off the cliff, I know that she hadn't meant to do it. She hadn't made a sound, but maybe that was the biggest sound she could ever make. Before that, there was this moment where we stared at each other, and in that split second of connecting eyes, things could've been in the old days. She could be arguing with me about how I shorted myself on food, given more of it to her, and that she didn't need me passing out. I could've been saying that she needed it more than me, I'd be fine. It could've been us practicing, and then getting distracted, because her eyes were just that blue, and right between her eyes, on the bridge of her nose, there was a triangle of freckles that irritated her to no end, because she didn't understand why she'd got landed with freckles and blue eyes, and didn't have a drop of Irish blood in her body, and it was something I always remembered when I looked her in the face, that measly little conversation that stuck in my mind.

And then it was over, I was off the cliff, because she had won, because she always won, and it wasn't something I could change because she was Thalia and I was Luke and it just worked that way, as Annabeth would always say. She said that there were different rules for us, because we had never followed anyone else's rules and why should we ever start? Thalia had agreed, snorting that the seven year old had been more intelligent than I'd ever be. It was that that I thought of as I was sailing to the bottom, something that seemed so far away. It seemed nonsensical, because it wasn't like I had a reason to think of these little details, possibilities that could never be possibilities because I was on a path and she was on a path and they were two different paths that could never combine because we were set on two different things. Maybe that was what made the darkness, that thick blackness that stopped everything, so much worse.

O is for Oblivious.

Thalia, despite being ADHD, is the most oblivious person ever. You'd think that with the battle senses and battle reflexes she has, plus it's not as if she's that - if she heard me, she'd kill me - stupid, she'd pick up on things. Nope. Something could sit right on top of her nose, and she wouldn't realize. She doesn't realize a lot of things like that, things that happen right in front of her eyes, that she just doesn't see. It's depressing.

When dealing with Thalia, things are straight forward. She's not like those girls that turns and twists you in circles, and you never know what's going on in their heads. If you know Thalia, you'll understand her. She hides things, yes, but she has a reason for everything. That being said, if something's coming out of left field. she won't pick up on it. She won't be able to sense it out, as let's say, Annabeth, would. It's one of the major differences between them - Annabeth is observant, while Thalia's the opposite. I guess when you put both of them together, you get the best of both words. But Thalia by herself, means everything gets pointed out. Even if she calls you stupid for making things obvious.

P is for Patience (or lack thereof).

There are many things that Thalia has - good battle sense, leadership abilities, the ability to speak sarcasm better than she speaks English, among other things. Patience isn't one of them. Thalia is one of the most, if not the most, intolerant person I've ever met. She doesn't have patience with people that are less intelligent than her. Whiners, people who don't work hard enough, and people that complain a lot, also fall under the list of people that she doesn't have patience with. She hates people that don't work to get themselves where they are, since that's all we've ever had to do. She hates lazy people, for the same reason.

She has no patience with summer, because she hates the hot weather. She has no patience with cats, because she's a dog person. She hates smokers, because she's always been paranoid that Annabeth will inhale second hand smoke - even though how we met involved cigarettes, but that's another long story. She isn't patient with rain, unless she was the one to cause it. She isn't patient when it comes to authority figures, because in her mind, they're all either selfish, corrupt, or cocky.

She isn't patient with books, because she thinks reading with dyslexia is a waste of time. She isn't patient with daggers, because she thinks that's Annabeth's job. She isn't patient with people who like country music, because she hates it, and hates them for liking it. She isn't patient with her father, because she thinks he could've been a hell of a lot better, especially regarding Jason. She isn't patient with Hera, because she hates Hera, and has tons of reasons to. That being said, Hera isn't patient with Thalia either, so I think they're even. Thalia isn't patient with people who can't do math, because if she can do math, anyone can do math. She isn't patient with sore losers, because there's a lot of other things in the world that are ten times worse to be sore about. She isn't patient with gloaters, and wishes that she could stick a spear through every one of their cocky heads, just to shut them up.

There's a million things that Thalia isn't patient with. I'm one of them, too. Annabeth, and maybe Jason, are probably the only people that she can have infinite patience with, and it's only because an older sister, a bodyguard, and can't have problems with their little brother, or the person they're protecting.

Q is for Quirks.

Thalia wouldn't be Thalia without her million and one quirks.

When she's nervous, she bites the right side of her bottom lip. When she's really nervous, her left hand shakes, and looks for something to tap her fingers on, absent-mindedly. When she's worried, she runs a hand through her hair, and then fixes it back to the way it was, just to do it all over again, rinse and repeat style. When she doesn't know something, she'll glare at you, because her ignorance is your fault.

When she doesn't know what to do in a situation, she gets angry. When she doesn't have control, she gets angry. When she feels trapped or isolated, she gets angry. When she feels worried, she gets angry. Anger is one of the all-purpose emotions that Thalia has, and it's also her auto-pilot. Getting snapped at when she's focused or thinking isn't at all unusual.

Sarcasm comes easier to her than plain English, which is one of the only things that defies her straight forward nature. She likes the sky when it's around three o'clock in the morning, because she says that that indigo is probably the prettiest color of blue she's ever seen, if she's frank. She hated picking shapes out of clouds, but loved making up shapes with the stars we could see in the city, and the millions of them we could see if we were in the country. She has an awful sweet tooth, but hates chocolate. She loves sour candy. She hates bubble gum, because of the awful sound it makes when people pop it. She says it grates on her nerves - I have to agree.

She makes her own rules, but she always consulted with me if it affected the both of us, especially when Annabeth joined us. She was good under pressure and stress, and she could lead perfectly fine under these circumstances, but if she had to follow orders, she would fall apart. She was independent to the point where it was almost dangerous. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and no one could tell her otherwise. She eyed girls that twirled their hair around a finger when talking or thinking while walking down the street as if they were another species, but never explained why.

There are millions of other things that made Thalia, Thalia. They were here, there, and everywhere. No matter what she did, how she acted, she was always unique. Her biggest quirk was that she didn't care what people thought about her - good, bad, or whatever it was - and even though other people in the world say that they feel the same way, and ignore other people's opinions, Thalia was the only one that honestly did it.

R is for Revenge.

There weren't many things that Thalia wanted in life. She wanted to be on the move, because she said she could never stay in one place for long. She wanted to travel, even though she got motion sickness and couldn't do planes because of her fear of heights. She said she'd make it work - I believed her. She wanted Annabeth and I to be happy, for us to always be together, the three of us. I'm sure she wanted for us to be safe, too, though she never actually said that she was worried. Her actions spoke louder than her words ever could.

She wanted revenge, revenge against the gods for abandoning the three of us, and I'm sure that even if Annabeth and I didn't know at the time, Jason was also a reason for her to want revenge. She'd never take it, she'd never actually get her revenge, though. And the two of us had the same desire, with the same goal in mind - to see the gods suffer, to make them pay. The only difference was that she would never actually pull it, and I did. Her loyalty was too strong, and mine wasn't strong enough. Even though she wanted revenge, she wouldn't be the one committing the act. I would. And I think that was the worst part for her.

S is for Stubborn.

If there's one thing that Thalia is, it's stubborn. That's probably one of her best known traits. Thalia does what she wants, when she wants to, and how she wants to. And that's that. When she sets her mind to something, there's nothing that can change that. Try? And you'll trigger her temper - something you don't want to do, for fear of losing a limb(s).

"What do you mean we have to wait? Let's hope on a bus, or a train, and skip this town. If you get caught, I get caught. I'd hate a jail cell. Not enough pacing room," she'd said. A police officer had asked me who I was with, where my mother was. I was sure they were keeping an eye on me. It was my one slip up in many years. Hermes would be disappointed - big whoop - but I might've put us in danger.

"Let's see how it plays out. If anything, we'll cross the 'police' bridge when we get there." I liked this town, and maybe I was getting a little bit attached. After all these years, wasn't I allowed?

"No. We're leaving. We have to pack, and we have to go. I'm not being given back to my mother, Luke, and neither are you!"

We left - I, maybe, saw some sense in her words. One of my "friends" in the city gave me the tip off, at a later time when we came back a year later, that all of the kids that had been on that street had been searched, when the police had been searching for us.

Thalia was right, then. But even if she's wrong, she won't admit it. She'd go to grave saying that she's right. If she thinks the sky is green, then the sky is green - even if it's clearly orange.


T is for Tree.

It was one kiss before she stayed behind to fight the monsters. She wouldn't let me, and knowing her, I would pay for fighting when we both made it if I stayed behind to fight. So I pushed, and I helped Annabeth, and I made sure Grover and the two of us made it while Thalia stayed behind. There were so many. All kinds, all species, all of them ugly, odd looking, and it looked like she could handle them at one point.

But then she couldn't. They all came at once, and she was doing her damnedest, and then she was down. I remembered screaming out, fighting against people because I was ready, I was ready to go and I was ready to fight because I knew I could help because I had to help because she couldn't die. And then there was a flash of white lightning, and the sound of something or someone roaring, and Grover was bleating and Annabeth was sobbing and I was numb and the light cleared, all the monsters were gone, and there was a tree.

I remember Chiron saying that Zeus had taken pity on his daughter, and turned her into a tree. But couldn't he have taken pity on her earlier? He was a god, King of Olympus, lord of the sky. Why couldn't he have driven away the monsters? Why couldn't he have killed them all? Why couldn't he have gotten us all into the border safely? I couldn't have been more angry.

I remembered going to sit there, under her tree, for hours each day. When I wasn't training, using a sword, or comforting Annabeth, I was under that tree. I'd stay awake at night, because she was always more Thalia at night than she was in the day, and I'd tell her everything and anything, what she'd like or what she'd hate about camp, and I'd tell her how Annabeth missed her, how Grover missed her, how the Zeus cabin was empty so if she was here with us she'd be ruler of the cabin, how Annabeth was making friends, how I was cabin leader of the Hermes cabin, how Hermes had actually claimed me, how Annabeth was a daughter of Athena and how that was no surprise. She knew everything, just like it always had been.

My visits to her tree started to get less and less, and the planning got to be more and more. And then I had to poison her tree. I stood there, by myself, ready but not ready. How could I do this to Thalia? She had done nothing wrong. She had believed in me when no one else had, and I was going to poison her life source?

I did it. I did it, and I left. But it was one of the hardest things I'd ever done in my life.

U is for Ugh (Something I heard from her very often).

Thalia wasn't a complainer. She didn't bitch and moan when things went wrong, she just did a wordless groan and snapped into action, working with the situation and making sure everything went according to the plan she'd gotten into her head and arranged in a ten second time period. I'd go along with it, because if there was one thing that it took me a long time to do, it was plan.

When something small went wrong, like when it was too hot, she'd make the same, irritated little sound. "Ugh". It showed when she was dissatisfied, even if she didn't realize that she made it. It showed she was angry but not angry enough to speak about it, or something, too angry to get the words out. Sometimes, it showed wordless pain, and sometimes, when she was hurt but didn't want to say anything, maybe she couldn't say anything because she didn't want to worry me, and later Annabeth, she made it, too. When she went "ugh", there was always a reason to either worry, or listen, because I knew it meant bad news.

V is for Violent.

The amount of times that Thalia's smacked me upside the head, I'm honestly surprised that I don't have permanent brain damage. She's violent. I think that's one of the things that'll never change about her, along with her stubbornness.

She's really good with weapons. She's always been able to beat me in a sword fight. Monsters don't stand a chance against her, unless she's overwhelmingly out-numbered. She doesn't take pity on anything or anyone, especially if the only thing she can do is kick them in the shin or punch them in the face.

Hunters also have to be good with fighting. They slay monsters, after all. She's constantly keeping up her skill. I guess that she'll always be that way - even if she's fighting monsters instead of people.

W is for Winter (And the holidays that go along with it).

Thalia loves cold weather. She loves the snow. She loves her birthday. She loves everything about this time of year.

"We need to go and steal a Christmas tree," she'd said once. I'd looked at her like she was crazy. How could we find a Christmas tree when we didn't have anywhere to put it or any ornaments to put on it. But Thalia was adamant.

"We're not getting a Christmas tree."

"Yes, we are."

I guess it was because she'd spent nine years in California, and then ran away. I guess it was because there'd never been snow there, and in December, there'd been no change from the heat and the palm trees that were there year-round. It was no wonder she loved Winter, and the holiday season, with something that made me smile.

One day, she'd come back to the alley that we were staying in, I was all bundled up because it was freezing, and then I spotted this little tree she was holding.

"It's stunted," she said. "No one will miss it." She shrugged. "I thought it was perfect."

The next day, she threatened my head if I didn't steal a box of tree ornaments. So I went out, got a box of lights, and tiny ornaments that would work with our tiny tree. She spent two hours decorating the stupid thing, humming a Christmas carol under her breath. She was happy, even when I told her that the ornaments and the lights were a late birthday present - since her birthday had been two days before and I hadn't gotten her anything - and refused to help her decorate it.

"Look!" She'd woken me up when she was all done. The lights were on - how had she managed ... just when I was about to ask, she pointed into the restaurant that we were living behind.

"I made a friend, and she hooked me up," she'd said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "And I got us dinner," she'd said with a grin, pointing at two hot food containers. It was one o'clock in the morning on Christmas day, and we were eating dinner in front of our little Christmas tree, bundled up in our coats with gloves and scarves and boots on.

"Merry Christmas," I'd said, and the grin I'd received glowed as brightly as our stupid little Christmas tree.

"Merry Christmas."

X is for Xylophone

One time, I took Thalia into a music store for her birthday. I figured I could steal her a guitar, and then she could learn to play. But before that could happen, she spotted this rainbow-colored xylophone, and started banging it. Because of her talented playing, we got kicked out of the store before I could get her the guitar by the owner shooing at us with a broom. According to Thalia, it'd been her "weirdest birthday ever."

Y is for Your Face (AKA Thalia's favorite insult)

The quickest, and easiest, insult for Thalia to spit out would be about someone's appearance. Thalia, whose hair was spiked and who had the oddest placement of freckles on her face and blue eyes that looked like they stared right into your soul, would insult someone's looks. I can safely say it was the funniest thing for anyone to be owned, and speechless, because of an eleven year old kid with a bad attitude.

"You gutter rat!" The store owner was glaring at her, spit flying out of his mouth. Thalia wiped at her face with one hand, one eyebrow raised and disgust apparent in her eyes.

"Your face," she'd started as I coughed out a laugh, "looks worse than a gutter rat." She smirked. "Especially a gutter rat like me," she said, grabbed two bags of family-size chips, and ran for it, the two of us falling into step as the store owner screamed something in a language neither of us could understand.

At times like that? It's the most effective. Especially when the person she's aiming at is already insecure.

Z is for Zeus

Thalia, daughter of Zeus, didn't think she had a good father. I agreed. Neither of us had good fathers, or good mothers. We'd struck out.

"My dad wasn't really around when I was younger. He came back for about a year, and that was about it. He wasn't a good dad, he didn't really care about me - I could tell he cared for my mother, but it's not like he could do anything to help her when her best friends were Jack Daniels and Jim Beam," she'd said. There weren't many times that Thalia's voice sounded so forcefully aloof. I could tell she was hiding something in her tone, something that sounded grim and upset, maybe even offended.

"And she loved that more than she loved your dad?"

"She loved them, and quite a few other labels, more than she loved me." This was one of those times that Thalia's eyes looked so blue, they could do a better job of coloring the sky than the sky's actual color. "So yeah, my dad left because he wasn't first priority."

Then, Zeus didn't help us at all, but turned her into a tree. Chiron said that he'd done it because he had taken pity on Thalia. Had Thalia been in that office instead of imprisoned in a tree, and had she heard that statement, I'm sure she would've stormed up to Olympus and made sure that he knew that there wasn't one thing that she needed from him, especially pity.

^{hey, so i'm laina. i've been roleplaying for four years now. as well as this character, i also play alexandre lefebvre. you can reach me by pm is fine if you need me for anything. i found made up stories like admin edit! and i'm pretty glad i did. here's an example of mah skillz. (:}

Harley had never been an outdoors person. She loved to be at home, or in some building, somewhere. She was social, and when she'd been only part of the muggle world, her and her friends had gone to the movies and shopping and all types of things. They'd never been to the park, they'd never attended any parade or went to any outdoor amusement park - Harley hated the wind and the chance of rain and she hated looking up and being able to see the sky and the clouds and everything else. The one thing she didn't hate were the stars, but she didn't love them enough to go out, climb all the way up the Astronomy Tower, and look at them. The only thing she went to the Astronomy Tower for was midnight snog sessions, and that was usually only when she was dating Kaleb, since he thought stars provided the perfect amount of lighting - when she'd called him an idiot for the comment, he hadn't disagreed. But when she went out today? It was fully sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and the blue color blinded her in an extremely irritating way. She was bored, though, and had come out in search of entertainment. It was easy for the fifth year to become bored, what with the stock she kept. Everyone was either stupid or fake, everyone either wanted something from her or wanted her attention, everyone wanted to know how she was a muggleborn, yet she got into Slytherin and she was actually respected among her housemates, despite that respect coming with a high price and a target on her back. Things for Harley would never be simple, if only because she wasn't simple. It was why everything had a double meaning, it was why she would always have almost no people she liked around but people that she didn't like that served her purpose, that could be stepped on if needed. If it was one thing that her older sister Jasmine had ever taught her, it was that people had to be stepped on in order to get where you wanted.

Harley caused hell. It was what she did. She made her own little world, and she operated from that little world's head quarters. If something didn't go her way, she changed it. If she couldn't change it, she'd made sure that there was enough of a ruckus that someone would pay for her unhappiness. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and she never got into trouble for it. Maybe that was because she blamed Hailey most of the time ... that could be it too, she knew. The two of them were identical, Harley being older by a few minutes, allowed Harley to constantly use that to her advantage. She just changed her robes to the Gryffindor colors, something she'd found a spell for, and she was all set. No one ever believed that she was the one that had done something, since Hailey had been "causing trouble" since first year. The Gryffindor that got good grades, was shy and quiet, was believed to have this rebellious streak that she tried to hide until she caught. That was what Harley had made sure was believed by mostly, if not, everyone at Hogwarts. She was someone that made sure her plans worked, and if they didn't, there was always a plan B - that, anyone that knew her could say. Why did no one suspect her? Harley did whatever she wanted in the open - at least, that's what people believed. She made no attempts to hide her attitude, and it was well known that she was a tyrant - especially over the younger years that the older years abandoned in their times of studying and Quidditch practice and everything else they had to do. Harley was naturally intelligent, and she didn't have to study much - she did all her school work quickly and effeciently, not that anyone thought she did anything at all. Most people probably thought she blackmailed the professors, or something to that effect. She wouldn't blame them - it did sound like something Harley Miller would do. Even though she was infamous, people didn't know that she would stoop to blaming her sister for everything, stoop to ruining her sister's reputation. She didn't mind - in fact, she found it amusing. She'd been doing it since she was a kid, after all.

Old habits may die hard, but old rivalries died harder. She snorted - it was true, she believed it. After all, how could anyone explain Harley and Hailey if that statement wasn't true? Harley was walking when she spotted her twin sister writing in some book - it was always writing with the other girl. She was a loser, a nerd, a disappointment. She was the sister that shouldn't have existed, she was the fourth child when there should've only been three. She was Hailey when the Millers should've only consisted of Joshua, Jasmine, and Harley. Harley would go to her grave hating her younger sister, she always would, and she didn't need a solid reason. She didn't need to explain to anyone why hearing her name made her see red, why she need to play games with her mind, why she needed to ruin her, why she needed to make sure that she didn't go anywhere in life. Even though she would never know this herself, she would never realize this herself, she only did things like that to Hailey because she hated herself. Identical twins - that was what they were. There was not one difference in their appearance, not one. Harley hated herself, so she took everything out on her younger clone. She did everything to Hailey because she couldn't ruin herself. She ruined people because she couldn't, wouldn't, doesn't know how to ruin herself. After all, she'd already run herself into the ground in some aspects - why not take everyone else down with her?

"Oh, look who it is. Ickle Hailey with her book and quill, and her mind a-blazing. Oh, Hailey. Did no one ever tell you that you wouldn't go anywhere in life with your little pieces of fiction? All of that is a lie, all of that distracts you from trying to bring yourself out of the ruin you've created for yourself. Tell me, how does it feel to be this much of a loser? How does it feel to know that you'll become nothing?

[/SIZE]" Harley sneered at her, her attitude coming in force. This was Hailey - there was no one better for her to taunt.[/quote][/blockquote][/font]



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