Yes, I'm rewriting this, because yes, it needs it, and fine. You win. I can't give up on fanfiction, though I'm still trying. So shut up.

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"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."
— Anne Lamott

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Dear Thalia

How long will it be before I stop getting the urge to look to look to you for orders, before I realize that now, it's all me? How long before I stop seeing it whenever I close my eyes—following you as we sprinted across a bloody battlefield, the ground exploding under you? How long before your gasp of surprise stops echoing in my ears every night before I fall asleep? How long before I stop telling myself that I should have been the one to step on it?

How long before I stop asking my dead best friend pointless questions? You're dead. Dead. The proof is sitting shiny on my forehead.

I like to think that I've held it up pretty well. Now that instead of commanding twelve, there's two hundred. Now that instead of roaming wherever we choose we're constricted to one small territory.

We used to have it good, didn't we.

Titan forces haven't found us yet, at least. We're in the satyr's sanctuary, just outside of Seattle. Protected by such strong magic that they could stand by the dining hall and not see any of it.

I'd say thank the gods, but the gods haven't a hope of hearing me. We don't know where they are, but we're looking. (We'll find them, we have to find them. And then we're going to make them suffer.)

I miss Artemis, but that's different then I miss you. I'm going to find her, Thalia, I swear. I'm going to find her or die trying. She's the one I can help. Unlike you. Unlike Phoebe. Unlike Lydia. Unlike Robin and Lark.

Dawn, Robin, Marisol, Lily, Isis, Rio, Willow, and me. Gods, that seems so small when I write it down. But at least we're not fighting alone anymore.

Originally, the resistance was the group of survivors that fled after the Titans took control. We've had more recruits since they made their presence known. Since they demanded sacrifice, and have mortals fight to the death for their entertainment. Since slaves became common and since normal society went haywire.

…and since Eden Emmerson became one of the most feared names in the world. So I have to stay strong, I have to look tough. I have to look like I actually can lead a rebellion, and hope the cracks don't show because if they widen I'll fall apart.

How did you do it? How did you manage to make it that long? You and all your losses? You were always stronger than me. I don't know if you would even recognize us now. I don't recognize my voice after a year with mortals. Lily used to laugh more. (And yet you wouldn't are about these things because you were the strong one.)

And yet, my some cruel twist of fate, now I lead an army.

And you're dead.

If I'm unlucky, I'll be seeing you soon.

Yours,

Eden.

O-o

Yeah… this is a rewrite of a story that I started in the spring of 2008, also called Years of our Titans. A lot of you have read it. A lot of you haven't. For those that haven't, do me a favor and don't start it.