ALL NOVEL Chapter 3: Zoe
Beep Beeeeeeeeep!
"FUCKKKKKK YOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"
As a sudden strong feeling of deja vu overtook me, I looked down at the city scape sprawled in front of me.
The noon sun was bearing it's horrendous gaze upon me, yet I was feeling none of it right now.
This past day, I had traveled to New York to confirm some things...
...only to find out that a certain Perseus Jackson has been struck down by lightning as a wee lad.
I mean, ong, I couldda sworn that I did absolutely nothing that could've shaken up the beginning of the story.
But, it seemed like some bullshittery like "me existing caused these air molecules to shift to the right a little which caused these air molecules to shift to the right etc etc until unfortunately, some air molecules that Zeus was paying attention to shifted upon Perseus Jackson.
And welp, the rest was history at this point now.
Seriously though, the next few years of my life would be much... MUCH harder without the protagonist, well, EXISTING.
Groaning into the hand that held my head, I begin to massage my temples at an even faster pace.
What was done was done, and now I had to fucking deal with it.
Well, I'd be thinking of contingencies later, for now though, I set about doing what I had promised as I once again set up my one man show.
~~~
Nine Months After the Events of the Last Chapter:
Shalom, as we had christened the little girl, had grown tremendously within the past year.
Even without the help of our Lady, the girl had one, stolen all of our hearts, and two, had been confirmed to be a genius in terms of mortals.
I mean, what kind of mortal is able to learn both english and greek within the span of a single year, whilst also having gotten much more proficient at hand to hand combat than anyone her age could be.
This combined with her, dare I say, god-rivaling physical appearance had cemented her place as the little sister we all doted on.
A genius, a beauty, a girl, who was also the youngest. Of course she became the instant favorite of the entirety of the hunters.
Heck, even Phoebe, who hated outsiders, had warmed up to the little girl faster than she had to any of the other hunters beforehand.
In other words, the effect of Shalom's presence within the camp was best described in one word:
Magical.
The whole camp had been feeling lighter, happier, since the little ball of silver had joined the hunt, and it didn't seem like her momentum that drove all these positive changes within camp would be dying anytime soon now.
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if we found out that the kid was a genius archer once we started showing her the ropes today.
'The blessing of my lady truly are potent.'
-I feel inclined to interrupt the story here. My genius had absolutely nothing to do with Artemis' blessings. It was more like I was learning these skills and languages again, just, the Boy didn't realize it. I had to keep the Artemis glaze in the story though, or else it wouldn't have been realistic yk?
"Shalom, it's time for thy first archery practice now." I called out to her.
In less than a second, a white blur had zipped across the camp, before finding a hand within mine.
Feeling the warmth in my hand, I couldn't help but smile slightly as my sister's looked on in jealousy.
Yes, although there had been dramatic improvements in, well, everything about her...
...Shalom still refused to allow skin contact with the majority of people.
Thankfully, she didn't lash out at people who accidentally touched her anymore.
And, she did allow two people to touch her as of the current moment.
The first had obviously been Phoebe, who had practically raised her up as a mother at this point.
Secondly, there was me, who had taught her everything she knew about the basics of combat, and soon to be, archery.
Having already walked down to the shooting range, I handed Shalom a boy tailor made for someone her age, before demonstrating the proper stance with a boy of my own.
"Don't do anything yet, Shalom. Just watch me and try your best to remember this basic form in your head."
Without having nocked an arrow, I demonstrated the proper stance to Shalom 3 different times before asking her to try it herself.
Watching her, I was about to set about fixing her stance, when I realized something.
Her form was perfect, even better than mine...
...by god, on par with Lady Artemis' form.
Like an old veteran of the hunt, she brought the bowstring back, using exactly enough of her back muscles, wasting not a single calorie of energy.
I had started sweating before I even realized it.
'This kid... is a genius... on par with the children of Leto herself!'
-I would like to interject here once more to defend my sisters. Both of the ones that the Boy had allowed to touch his body had held him up and at one point, had confirmed that we were just a clear sighted mortal. And, with Artemis being gone for the majority of the first year I had been raised, nobody in the camp knew differently, and thus, I was just a monstrous genius to them.
It was only much much later that anybody realized that I was a man. But this was still 4 years in the future.
For now, I was the beautiful, graceful, best girl, Shalom!
Cough cough, anyways, back to the story...
"Try it with an arrow now?" I muttered out, a little surprised by my own expectations of what this little 8 year old could do.
And sure enough, I hadn't even needed to tell her, but she had shot the arrow perfectly as it made it's way and embedded itself right into the bullseye of the target.
I hadn't taught her how to aim yet, I hadn't taught her how to release the arrow yet, heck, I hadn't taught her much about form even.
'Was she... favored by Artemis herself?'
It really did seem like the only real explanation for the... for lack of a better term, monstrosity that was little Shalom's skills.
In the end, we had practiced into the evening, wherein somehow, Shalom had destroyed 50 good arrows by robin hooding them.
My face was paler than a vampire's as we walked back to camp, hand in hand.
~~~
"Sister Zoe, what's a man?"
Sighing, I turned to look at the little girl who was holding my hand.
We had been sitting at the dinner table, eating, when she had asked this question to me.
And, almost immediately, the chattering between the hunters had come to a full stop, as a dangerous glint shined in each and every one of their eyes, including mine.
"Why do thy ask that, Shalom?" I wondered, as all the other hunters listened to our conversation in rapt attention.
"Well... I asked Big Sis Phee the other day, and well, she had only spewed a few curses before walking away..."
That earned Phoebe a quick glare from myself and some of the other hunters.
"...and I also saw the term mentioned in a lot of my books."
I watched as she looked up at me expectantly, and I could only sigh before indulging her curiosity.
"What do thy know about genders, Shalom?" I asked, gently.
"Genders?"
Ah, I had forgotten.
She had grown up in the company of animals and monsters.
Pointing to myself and the rest of the hunters, I said,
"There are only two genders Shalom, male and female, and all of us are females."
"There are only two genders?" I watched in horror as Shalom whipped out a phone that had apparently been recording our conversation thus far.
"Did I really hear that correctly, Sister Zoe?" She asked, in a sickly, almost disgusting tone.
"Fuck, Imma get cancelled, aren't I?"
I then prepared myself for the worst.
-Okay okay, I might have taken some creative liberties here. There were no phones back then (1990), nor were they really much other genders. I know that there were other sexualities back then already, but I don't remember ever learning about them calling themselves a completely separate gender from the two norms. So yea, please don't cancel Sister Zoe 🙏.
Alright, lemme rewind time.
"There are only two genders Shalom, male and female, and all of us are females."
Even though I was approaching such a sensitive topic, especially to the rest of the hunters here, I made sure to be as impartial in my explanation as possible. Although, it probably wouldn't have helped anyways as the rest of the hunters begin cursing men in front of Shalom once she reached the age of 10.
Also, that reminded me, I would need to assign extra chores to Phoebe tonight for cursing in front of Shalom.
"So I am a female too?" Shalom asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I nodded, as did the rest of the hunters.
"Then what are males?"
Hearing such an innocent question, my fellow sisters quickly brought up very not innocent ways to explain such a concept under their breaths, but a quick glare from me shut them all down.
"We will not be knocking out/killing a man just to show Shalom the difference in our anatomy."
Giving my sisters a firm warning, I turned back to Shalom, who had been analyzing our reactions expectantly.
"They are like us, humans..."
Herein, I had used the term "humans" very loosely, as the majority of them didn't even qualify to be called that.
"But they just look different. You'll know it when you see it, Shalom."
And with that, I firmly ended the conversation as we all moved to clean up the dining table before starting our evening chores.
~~~
So, how did y'all like my retelling of Zoe's perspective?
I was currently walking through the middle of Manhattan right now, watching as the sun set from in between the buildings.
Of course, I had been using the mist to hide some of the schizophrenic tendencies that I was exhibiting, but never mind that.
I was heading south, towards long island right now.
'If I remember correctly, the trio should be arriving at Camp Half Blood around this time, along with the Hunters.'
Thinking about them, I felt a pang in my heart, or well, the Boy's heart, but I quickly suppressed it.
Anyways, that was all for Zoe's story today.
'Should I do Phoebe part two? No... I'll do Artemis tomorrow.'
And with that, the sun fully set, as I continued happily skipping towards a certain long ass island.