At the beginning Luke visited Thalia’s tree often. Thalia, the girl who was Luke’s first real friend. When he thought he was the only freak in the world there was this twelve year old girl who was stronger than Luke could ever hope to be. She was always so brave and understood what it was like to be different.
Thalia was truly Luke’s first friend. You don’t get that many friends when your mom’s eyes glow green all the time and spouts random things, prophecies or something. Weird stuff like that.
But she never turned away from him. In the contrary she opened up to him, called him her friend. He knew he could never let this wonderfully crazy girl get away from him.
Every minute they spent together was amazing. Luke would never admit that he was starting to have a crush on her. He was supposed to be in high school, and she would be in middle school. But age didn’t come between them. He didn’t know what he would do without her in his life.
Then they found Annabeth. She was just seven years old but strong for her age. Since the moment they found her Luke and Thalia agreed to look after her and bring her to where in the world they were going to end up. This became Camp Half Blood, the only safe place for their kind.
Even when Grover, a satyr, started leading them to this camp Luke never stopped making sure Thalia was safe at all times. He always had to make sure she was right there. He ended up glancing at her often. Sometimes Thalia would catch these glances and they would share shy smiles.
If we survive all this I’m never going to let her out of my sight, Luke thought.
But Thalia didn’t make it all the way.
In the end they were ambushed by monsters, and instead of allowing him to fight them off, Thalia insisted on being the one to take care of it all.
“No! Thalia, I won’t leave you behind,” Luke yelled just to be heard. The wind was blowing and rain was coming down hard. This didn’t make fighting monsters any easier.
“Luke, you have to. There is no other way for this to end.”
She was surprisingly calm. Despite the odds being against her she was so clam about all of this mess.
“Thalia! Luke! Come on!” Annabeth was with Grover, pleading for her friends to come with her. For only being a kid she would sure fight for herself. Grover wasn’t great, but at least he was still able to play some tunes on his reed pipes.
Luke and Thalia looked each other in the eye for what may’ve been the last time. Despite Thalia trying to pull a brave face, tears were pooling in her eyes. She knew what she was doing. She knew it was suicide.
Without thinking Luke gave Thalia a kiss. It was short, basically a peck on the lips, but all of the things that were unsaid between them were conveyed.
Luke turned around and grabbed Annabeth’s hand, basically dragging her away from the fight. Grover covered them the best he could with his reed pipes. Vines were shooting up to keep the two demigods safe. Thalia did an even better job. She distracted the monsters with some lightning and her shield, which had Medusa’s face on it. It was pretty frightening, even to monsters.
After getting to the other side of the hill the two demigods and satyr ran in the direction of the big house, though Luke stumbled half way there. Grover and Annabeth had to drag the barely conscious boy the rest of the way. He was almost too much for the pair of them, since Annabeth was still pretty small and Grover was, well, Grover.
Almost to the steps they heard a terrible scream. It was a sound of pure agony and it was coming from the top of the hill. After one bolt of lightning that lit up the entire camp followed by a loud clasp of thunder, the screaming stopped.
Campers came out of their cabins, nymphs out of the forest, and a centaur rushed out of the Big House. They were all looking up to where Thalia should’ve been. But instead there was just a single pine tree.
“Has that tree always been there?”
“What was that screaming?”
“Holy Hephaestus, why would Zeus throw lightning right by the camp?”
“Why is the hill covered in monster dust?”
More and more questions were being murmured by the campers. Chiron, noticing the two demigods and Grover walked over to them. “I believe we haven’t met you two. I am Chiron, camp director of Camp Half Blood, which I’m sure Grover here has already told you about.”
And just like that, Luke’s life had changed yet again. His best friend was dead. Or, rather, turned into a tree, but she might as well have died.
At first Luke spent all the time he could at Thalia’s tree. Annabeth sometimes came with him, but she didn’t quite get the concept that the tree was one of her best friends. It just seemed like a tree.
Usually it was just Luke. He would sit by the pine or under her branches. Sometimes he would talk to it, pretending Thalia could hear him. To him Thalia was still there. She must be if the tree is still alive.
After a while his visits became shorter and less frequent. Finally Luke would only go to her tree on the day of her last battle or when he especially missed her.
After his quest he stopped visiting all together. He knew now that there was no use. Thalia was dead and Olympus was going to pay. Not just for Thalia, but she was always a reason, no matter how much he may’ve denied it. Thalia would join him if she could. He just knew that she would agree that they should bring down the type of people, the type of fathers, who would do this to their children.
Now he didn’t know if he loved or hated that tree.