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It began at dawn, the camp still soft with the particular quiet that settled between the end of watch and the start of breakfast, when the world had not yet committed to being awake. The fire pit breathed low, sending thin ribbons of smoke upward through the canopy, dew clung to everything, to canvas and the edges of silver clad blades resting against tent poles, and the light that filtered through the pines was the pale, the gold of a day that had not yet decided what it wanted to be.
Thalia was sharpening an arrowhead on a flat stone, focused and methodical, when Percy emerged from the tent he shared with Artemis and crossed the field toward the fire pit with the ease of someone who had slept well and was not in a particular rush to do anything about it. His dark locks were still slightly disheveled, his shirt tucked at one side, and he carried two cups, one of which he intended for himself and the other of which he set down carefully beside the goddess, her bow already in hand, her auburn curls already brushed and her silver eyes already alert, she appeared ready for battle as she always did.
She turned her attention from her bow when he set the cup down, he bent and kissed her cheek, swift and calm, the gesture so natural it barely registered as a decision, Artemis took her cup, said something low that made Percy smile, and turned back toward the edge of the forest where she intended to conduct morning assessments with the hunters on watch rotation.
Thalia watched this, then looked at the arrowhead in her hand, then looked back at the place where Percy was now poking at the fire with a stick and humming something tuneless under his breath, she set the arrowhead down, a thought had arrived, fully formed and already faintly dangerous, the kind that carried with it the particular energy of something that was going to happen regardless of whether it was a wise, which it definitely was not.
She turned to the nearest hunter seated beside her, who was braiding a bowstring with quiet attention, and asked in a tone only she was meant to hear, without preamble, "How many times do you think they kiss in a day?"
The hunter looked at her, considered the question with the seriousness it deserved, then looked toward the fire pit where Percy was now attempting to balance the stick across his knuckles, and said, "Definitely more than they realize."
"We should find out."
The methodology, such as it was, relied entirely on observation and a small piece of bark that Thalia had appropriated from the woodpile and was using to make tally marks with the tip of her arrowhead. The rules were simple, any kiss counted, on any surface, by either party, at any time. Kisses exchanged while the subjects were aware of being watched did not count, which meant the hunters were operating under strict conditions of absolute normalcy, a condition they adapted to with the enthusiasm of people that had been anticipating for exactly this kind of assignment.
The first kiss had technically already occurred, so the hunters, seeking rigor in their analysis, decided the official count began from that moment.
The second kiss happened almost immediately, Percy had been helping Phoebe organize the supply tent, which mostly meant handing things to her while she arranged them with efficient precision, and he made observations that she acknowledged with the patient tolerance of someone who had survived a thousand years of various attempts to inconvenience her. Artemis appeared at the tent entrance with a question about the route for the afternoon hunt, and Percy turned, listened and answered, and then, as she turned to leave, caught her hand, drew her briefly back, and pressed a kiss to her temple before releasing her.
Artemis walked out of the tent without breaking stride.
Percy turned back to handing things to Phoebe, her expression did not change by a single degree, though the hunter standing just outside the tent entrance turned and held up one finger toward Thalia across the field.
By forenoon, the count had reached eleven.
This was, by general consensus of the observing hunters, both higher and lower than expected, higher because the morning had barely progressed, lower because several moments had been near misses that Percy had apparently restrained himself from, they could not help but feel both impressed by his discipline and suspicious of it.
The distribution was interesting.
Five had been Percy kissing Artemis, a cheek, a temple, the back of her hand once when she handed him something, the top of her head when she walked past him while he was standing still, the corner of her lips once when she put her hand on his arm. Four had been Artemis kissing Percy, which arrived with less frequency but still with deliberateness, as if each one had been a considered decision rather than an instinct, a kiss to his jaw when he said something that pleased her, a kiss to his shoulder when she passed behind him, and brief but firm kisses to his lips twice at moments that did not seem to require particular occasion.
The hunters had developed a silent signal system, a raised finger for each count, communicated across the camp with the focused efficiency of people that had trained for together in coordinated action, Thalia received each signal and recorded it with the dedication of someone who had found her calling.
The subjects remained entirely oblivious, this was perhaps the surprising part.
The count reached twenty three by the noon.
Lunch in the camp was a communal affair, far from formal, the hunters gathering in loose clusters around the fire pit with bowls and conversation. Percy sat beside Artemis on a fallen log, close enough that their shoulders were in contact, which seemed to be their natural selves regardless of available space. They ate, and talked, and at one point Percy said something that made Artemis laugh, a genuine laugh, the scarce kind that arrived quickly and left a smile behind it, and he looked at her when she laughed with the specific gaze of a person who considered making her laugh one of the worthwhile things he did with his time, then he kissed her cheek.
A hunter from a respectful distance away raised a finger without looking up from her bowl.
By the time lunch concluded and the field began to empty toward the afternoon, the hunters had counted thirty one, Thalia looked at her tally marks on the bark and showed them Phoebe, who stood beside her, she studied it for a moment, then said, very calmly, "We will need a bigger piece of bark."
The afternoon brought a different character to the count.
The afternoon hunt had taken a portion of the camp away, tracking a chimera that had been making noise in the forest two ridges east. Percy and Artemis had gone together, naturally, fighting side by side with the fluid synchronicity of a couple that had long since stopped needing to communicate everything aloud. The observing hunters that accompanied them had the additional challenge of maintaining combat readiness while also conducting the count, a situation one hunter described afterward as the most demanding multitasking she had attempted in centuries of service.
The chimera fell with little ceremony.
During the walk back, on a stretch of path where pine roots crossed the ground in rugged ridges and the light had gone from gold to the amber of late afternoon, Artemis caught his arm when he misjudged a root and nearly went sideways, Percy steadied, laughed at himself, and she looked at him for a moment with a gaze that was too private and too complete to describe, then pressed her lips to his jaw soft and walked ahead towards the camp.
The hunter behind them raised two fingers, because there was a second kiss immediately following the first, pressed to his cheek as she passed, so brief it might have been a breeze except that it was not.
The chimera fight itself had generated three kisses, which the hunters considered both impressive and faintly absurd. One had occurred immediately after the chimera fell, a quick press of lips to his forehead from Artemis that she delivered with the same brisk efficiency she applied to checking his armor for damage. The other two had occurred in a brief moment of relative calm during the battle when Percy had pushed Artemis away from a tail sweep and she had looked at him with that particular expression she wore when he did something reckless that she also found difficult to be annoyed by, and kissed him twice, sharp and fast, before drawing her bow again.
The count by the time they returned to camp was fifty seven, and Thalia had indeed acquired a larger piece of bark.
Evening came in layers, the way it always did in the forest, the light changing from amber to rose to the deep, settled violet that arrived just before full dark, the camp assembled from its various afternoon tasks, the fire built from embers to something generous, dinner taking shape in iron pots that released fragrant steam into the evening.
By dinner, the kiss count stood at seventy nine.
The hunters that were not directly involved in food preparation had taken to watching with the focused attention of scholars witnessing something that was not precedented. The number had grown not through dramatic and obvious displays but through the relentless accumulation of small, unconsidered moments. A kiss when passing each other in the camp, a kiss when one of them returned from wherever they had been, a kiss at the end of a sentence that had gone well, a kiss that did not seem to need any reason at all, that arrived simply because they were near each other and that was reason enough.
Neither of them appeared to be keeping track, completely and utterly oblivious.
This was the detail that the hunters found remarkable, neither of them was performing affection, neither was making an occasion of it, they simply moved through the day as they always did and kissed the way people breathed, as something that happened because not doing it would have required more conscious effort than doing it.
At dinner, the count climbed with particular speed, ninety one by the time bowls were filled.
Ninety five when Percy filled her cup without being asked and she touched his hand briefly in acknowledgment, then kissed his knuckles, then went back to her conversation with Phoebe.
One hundred and three when Artemis said something sharp and accurate about the tactical approach of the chimaera and Percy turned his gaze at her, his sea green eyes shined bright as he watched her for a moment, and kissed her temple before she finished the sentence.
Thalia made each mark with the solemn dedication of someone recording something important for posterity.
The conversation flowed in contented currents between hunters, the sky above the pines deepened from violet to black and the stars appeared one by one in the spaces between branches. Percy and Artemis had settled into the arrangement they always arrived at eventually, her leaning into his side, his arm around her shoulders, both of them present in the conversation around the fire while also in that particular private orbit they carried everywhere with them.
A young hunter leaned toward Thalia and whispered while covering her mouth, "How many?"
Thalia looked at the bark, her lips curled into a smile, she whispered back, "One hundred and nineteen."
The hunter stared, the words hanging like something hard to comprehend, "In one day."
"We started at breakfast," she said, with the tone of someone presenting evidence, and showed her the bark with all the marks on it.
A second hunter had leaned in to hear, eyes widening at the number, then looking toward Percy and Artemis at the fire and then back at the tally with the expression of someone recalibrating their understanding of several things simultaneously.
The question circulated through the hunters in quiet ripples, the number passing from one to the other with the hushed speed of something almost too significant to say aloud, the reactions varied, several hunters simply nodded, as if they had expected something in this range, while some looked genuinely stunned, one looked at the fire for a long moment and spoke to herself, drawing chuckles from the nearby hunters, "That is more than I have laughed this month."
At the fire, Percy said something to Artemis, too quiet to hear across the camp, she turned to look at him, then kissed him, slow and passionate, one hand at his jaw, the way she kissed him when she had decided to and was not rushing it.
Thalia made the mark.
One hundred and twenty.
The fire had burned lower and the camp was beginning to settle toward sleep, Percy and Artemis rose from their place by the fire to go to their tent, Percy said goodnight to the hunters nearby with the familiarity he always had with them, and Artemis nodded with the composed dignity she always maintained even at the end of a long day.
As they crossed the field, Artemis stopped for a moment, whispered something to him, and he turned toward her, he kissed her forehead, she kissed his cheek, and then they entered their tent.
Thalia made two final marks, looked at the bark for a long moment, then showed it to Phoebe, who had drifted over at some point in the evening and had been watching the whole operation with the calm patience of a hunter who had seen every variety of behavior the world had to offer.
Phoebe looked at the tally for a moment, then looked at the tent, then back at the tally, and nodded her head to herself, "One hundred and twenty two."
"In a single day."
"They did not notice once," said a nearby hunter, who sounded both fascinated and slightly emotional about it.
"They never do," Phoebe agreed, her voice carrying the calm certainty, she had lived long enough to recognize something sincere and genuine when she saw it.
Thalia looked at the bark one more time, then set it down on the log beside her, around the fire, the hunters sat in a quiet that was not empty, several of them looking at the tent, several looking at the sky, some of them were smiling at nothing in particular.
Eventually, one hunter said, a little wistfully, and a teasing smirk on her lips, "Same time tomorrow?"
Thalia picked the bark.
"Same time tomorrow."