What was left behind 1/2

[ Luke pov ]

Luke wasn't sure of what made him angrier, was it perhaps when Chiron said Thalia was turned into a pine tree, that Zeus took pity on his dying daughter and used her to create a barrier all around camp, a barrier no monster could go through? It indeed make his blood boil the fact that Zeus could have done anything at any moment and still chose to wait until she died before taking pity on her.

Then was it perhaps when the people of the infirmary said that Christina needed surgery, which forced him to hear her screams of pain whenever she was awake? It most certainly made him feel useless, unable to do anything to relief her agony.

Maybe the fact that there were so many unclaimed children, so many kids who were as ignored as him? It didn't improve his image on the gods at all, but he had grown used to the gods ignoring their children.

Still, if Luke had to choose what truly made him the angriest, it would be the fact that there was a god in the camp, a god was present when they were running through the hills right beside the camp, a god heard their screams and sobs, a god heard Thalia be torn apart by hellhounds and Furies, and that same god chose to look the other way, without sparing them a single thought.

With each thought, Luke's anger grew bigger and in turn the swing of his sword grew faster, more unrestrained, until the dummy he was practising on broke. The rest of the people present on the sword fighting arena looked in his direction with slight admiration, while some even applauded. Luke let out a small smile at this and waved his hand to them before moving on to the next dummy.

Luke could feel himself slowly improving, every strike was better than the last one, every swing was deadlier than the previous one, still this was not enough. He already was good with a sword even before training with it, right now that he actually had a place to train and a sword to use, there was nothing that would stop him from being the best.

Eventually, Luke left the training grounds tired. He spent a while training with some people of the Ares cabin as he had been doing for the past week and by now he felt he wouldn't be able to practice with them for long.

As he made his way to the infirmary he saw Annabeth sitting outside while reading a book, so focused on it she didn't even notice him getting close to her. A small smile formed on his face as he thought about how happy Thalia would be if she were to see Annabeth having so many books to read, the only problem with that is that for someone to be happy, they also need to be alive.

Luke's mood quickly soured as he stopped right next to Annabeth without calling her attention yet. Every time he thought Thalia it hurt more and more, no matter under which situation he could never actually enjoy himself or the moment, his thought always making their way back to Thalia's face while dying, blood coming out from her nose and mouth while a determined expression remained on her face. It is true that Thalia died proudly, he knew she most likely didn't regret it, but so what? Was he supposed to just accept it? To just move on even though he couldn't get the sound of her flesh and bones being ripped apart out of his mind? Despite the fact that he lo-

"Oh hey Luke." said Annabeth, bringing his attention to her. "Are you okey?" she asked with a concerned expression.

Luke's face grew softer as a small smile formed on his lips. "Yeah, I am fine." he replied while ruffling her hair. "Just a bit tired from training."

"I see, come here and look at this story!" said Annabeth while grabbing his hand and making him sit down next to her. "According to this guy a fall to Tartarus would take nine full days! How crazy is that right? I just read about Tartarus two days ago and I didn't expect people would wonder how long it would take to fall there."

Luke got a closer look at what Annabeth was reading and he shared his head a bit. "What you are reading is not a story Annabeth, but a poem." said Luke.

"A poem?" asked Annabeth. She had heard about poems before, but she couldn't recall ever reading one.

"Yes, a poem." replied Luke nodding with his head. "Though a poem is kind of a story I guess. Basically what makes a poem a poem is the way it is written. In this case do you say the length of the lines and the way they rhyme? It is like this because it is a poem."

"Ahhh, that's why it is so weird to read huh." said Annabeth as many doubts in her mind cleared. "I thought the person was just weird. I thought it might be a song so I tried to sing it but it didn't sound right."

"Hahaha I expected as much, poems don't sound all that well when you sing them, it is better to read them and leave it at that." said Luke while laughing. "Seems like you are enjoying yourself now that you can read."

"Yes!" replied Annabeth excitedly. The books here were written in Ancient Greek, the only language demigods could read.

"That's good..." said Luke while moving his gaze away from her. "I will go to the cabin now, I need to take a shower after all."

"Won't you stay here?" said Annabeth, holding his sleeve.

"I already asked them to call me when Christina got out so that we could go with her from now on, besides you are here protecting her, so it is impossible for anything to go wrong." he replied while crouching down with a smile and ruffling her hair once again. "Tell me if something happens okey?"

"Okey." replied Annabeth with a small smile, she would be lying if she said it didn't make her happy that Luke trusted her that much.