Disclaimer: I don't own.

(A/N): a series of drabbles based on an unlikely, yet so likely a pairing. Title and last line from "In Pursuing Design" by VersaEmerge.

Prologue

It began when he was fourteen. That much he could say. The rest between that was up to her.

Though, in this beginning, Zoë hated every piece of him, every cell in his body, every thought in his mind, every word he said, she absolutely detested. Sure, she hated men. But there was something about this clever boy that made her hatred into something bigger. Whatever it was, she was not aware of at the time.

No, she was too busy with the Hunt. Too busy serving her goddess and too busy being stuck on the tears and pain of the past to think of anything but lowly of Luke Castellan.

She had warned the other one. Thalia—that this boy would betray her. Why she said it, she was not sure. Something just told her that one day, he would become someone that would need drastic saving if they ever wanted to make things right again.

Zoë remembered the way his eyes glowed with disdain when those words escaped her lips. He will betray you. He wasn't the son of Hades or Zeus or Poseidon—or even Ares for that matter. Just another thief—another cunning boy that had no use to him but his ability to take. Take and never give. But something about him radiated power, intelligence.

Until her last breath, she really wished she was wrong.

It would be vastly precise to say that Luke had had feelings for Annabeth. Although these feelings were not very prevalent until she had matured, and by then it was too late, they were there nevertheless.

In a way, Annabeth reminded him a lot of Zoë. And, from what he gathered that fateful time at Mount Othrys, Annabeth Chase had weighed the options of joining Artemis's Hunt as well. But there was a keen difference between the two that Luke could see even with his young eyes.

Where Annabeth doubted, Zoë knew. Love, for instance. Over the years, he could see the way Annabeth was on the topic. In and out, all over the place, never really securing the idea to her wits—unlike everything else in the world. The girl could commit to the memory the most advanced mathematics, the most intricate clue, but she doubted such a thing like love sometimes, he could tell.

But Zoë on the other hand knew love. She knew it like the back of her hand, like the constellations in the sky, like the arch of her bow. This was why she vowed to Artemis in the first place. She knew love. Knew the keen sting, the endless hurt of being stabbed in the back by the ones you care about. She knew love so much it hurt.

He believed that without a doubt.

brief: take a chance, hope high, do not let life pass you by------------------------------------------------------------