Chapter Text
Thalia groaned at the feeling of hard rock against her back.
Except, that didn't make any sense. The Hunters had set up camp for the night and Thalia had fallen asleep in her tent and bedroll to the sounds of cicadas and one of the girls in the tent nextdoor who some how still denies her snoring.
Upon groggily opening her eyes, only open sky was visible. Not a single California Red Wood from where everyone stopped to rest, was visible. Not even in her peripheral vision. Come to think of it, the air felt... Oh no...
Oh Please no.
Thalia sat up and looked around. Sure enough, she was on a mountain.
Gods fucking damn it.
Thalia got up and took stock of what she had. Her outfit was completely wrong. How she hadn't noticed when she woke up was baffling. She didn't have her silver coat or camo pants or anything normal. Instead, she had a white chiton that went to just above her knees, with a belt around her waist, a dark green himation, and endromides. Thankfully, Thalia still had her Aegis bracers, and collapsible spear.
However, her circlet was gone. She still felt her usual sturdiness that came with being a huntress, but then why was her circlet gone? Did she get demoted? Why? Was this a test? But Artemis wasn't the type to test people randomly. Unless that was somewhere in a myth Thalia never had the time to read when she was preoccupied with the chaos that was her life. She honestly wished it could've been some of the younger hunters messing with her. Those rascals had a level of mischief that would make a Hermes kid blush.
And then she could scold them for punking her. Then they would say no one uses "punk'd" anymore. Then she'd internally groan at the notion of her starting to act like Zoë had all those years ago. Gods she's getting old- ugh! Focus stupid. Right now she needs to figure out where the Hades she is. She can't believe she's thinking this, but it's a good day to be a child of Zeus. One of the few benefits is the ability to know the name of places with high elevation due to Zeus' whole "Lord of the skies" thing. A quick tap into that ability and...
Mount Oeta
...
What?
How? How the fuck is she in Greece?
That made no sense. She was across an entire ocean just the night before. You know what? She should get to the ground. As fresh as the mountain air felt, it would be preferable to be at the base
Upon walking down one side of the peak a little to (reluctantly)look down and get a better idea of her surroundings, Thalia guessed it would take a few hours to reach the forest at Mount Oeta's base. Upon looking back up at the sky, it would probably be dark by the time she got all the way down. And as used to hunting and traversing different places at all hours as Thalia was, she was not about to go into the woods at night in a place she wasn't familiar with while alone.
Absolutely not. Sure she survived months on her own before, but she nearly died along the way. Going into foreign wilderness alone and not knowing what was hiding in it was a dumb idea. Especially considering that Annabeth mentioned that Rome and Greece had a higher number of monsters that were extra dangerous. Whether that was just because Gaea was slowly waking up at the time, or because they were in the ancient lands, didn’t matter. Because Thalia sure as Tartarus doesn’t plan on finding out.
Now to figure out which route down she should take. She might as well go East since it was currently afternoon and she'd be able to go on the direction the sun would be once morning came back. And so, she started her descent. Thankfully, Mount Oeta wasn't too steep. It's actually kinda nice ignoring how high up it is despite being on the lower side compared to other mountains. And ignoring the fact she had no idea how or why she got here.
There were some clumps of green among the dry grass, interrupted by the stone of the mountain peeking out, a few mid sized rocks, and a few small drops. It was honestly a little refreshing. After having been practically all over the United States, seeing new geography and terrain was rare and a nice change. And the air was super clear and fresh feeling as well. The kind of fresh you normally would get from the crisp chill from colder weather. If it weren't for the fact Thalia didn't know how the Hades this happened, she'd dare say that she was having a pretty good morning.
But a quick mild hunger pain reminded her that she had needs to worry about. She hadn't spotted any birds yet, but she was on a mountain so it made a bit of sense. What kind of game was even in Greece? Birds were a given, boars are well known, one of Apollo's sacred animals was the wolf, Artemis has deer and bears, but that's based on Ancient Greece. Not modern Greece. And there was no way there are so few animals. She just had to hope there were some mountain animals given the fact she wasn't getting into the woods until tomorrow. Technically, she could go a few weeks until she started starving. But a starved, weakened demigod was easy pickings. Regardless of parentage.
Actually, not too far away, was a group of boars. Ugh. Those things are a pain in the ass to kill. The farther away from you, the better. Plus, they haven't noticed her yet. But that advantage wasn't going to last, so she needs to take advantage of it now. Summoning her bow into her hands and quiver on her back(which confirmed her theory about still being a huntress despite all the weirdness), Thalia notched an arrow, aimed, pulled back into partial draw to adjust her aim, and fired. She made sure to grab another arrow as the shot landed. The boar died instantly thanks to the clean blow to the heart but that still alerted the other boars. Two took off down the mountain while the other two charged her. Thalia quickly took aim and fired at the first charger. Unfortunately, it moved out of the way of her shot and instead hit the second one in its spine.
Damn it. She quickly ran left. Sure she could run up hill to try and tire the boars, but she'd exhaust herself too. And running down hill would give the boars less distance to cover. Thalia notched another arrow, glanced at the ground ahead, turned to look at the boars, shot at one and the arrow hit it in the brow. It slowed down by recoiling a bit in pain and but asshole number 2 was still going strong. If it hadn't been such a clear day, Thalia would've used lightning right now for conveniences sake. But she didn't want to have mortals(if there were any nearby) wondering how lightning struck a mountain when there were barley any clouds, much less a storm. So handling things the old fashion way would have to do.
Looking ahead once more Thalia noticed she was approaching a drop. How high was it? She doesn't know. Looking back, the boars were pretty much in line with her. So she turned to run down the mountain. She notched another arrow, aimed and fired again. This time at the boar with an arrow in its spine. And now, it was the second dead boar. One left. Aaaannnd Thalia tripped. In her defense, she got too focused on the boars to notice the slight dip in the stone. Still, she only stumbled a little. But the damn thing was still charging her. And sure, she's fought worse, but a boar can do more damage than most people think. But no way in Hades is Thalia going to let herself be killed by a boar of all things. Thalia then got an idea, and kicked herself for not thinking about it sooner. She summoned Aegis, dug her heels into the mountain side, turned around and flashed the shield at the boar. It immediately recoiled and turned around in a panic. "Finally. Stupid boars..."