Bewitched || P. Jackson

𝕋halia's pine tree

"Y'know, Nic... I've been thinking."

"That's always dangerous," Nicki muttered, not looking up from her book as Ethan spoke. Her dark green eyes skimmed across the paragraphs on her page. Doubt as to whether she was actually reading crossed Ethan's mind as Nicki turned the page faster than he could finish three paragraphs.

Swinging his feet childishly, Ethan gazed across Camp Half-Blood. "Are you happy here?"

"Yes." The girl replied without having to think about it. Even without Percy and Nico at camp, she felt more at home than she had ever thought possible. "Why? Aren't you?" Peeling her eyes away from her book, she looked up at Ethan on a tree branch above her.

The winter sun glowed in the distance, bathing camp in a golden glow.

Percy's visits had lessened since their one-month anniversary. Obviously, after a month of school, the workload began to pile up on the son of Poseidon and his free time decreased. It wasn't that Nicki was mad. He still tried to visit as often as possible, but that ended up being mostly once a month with an Iris Message once every two weeks.

Nicki had thrown herself into life at camp, to keep herself occupied.

The demigod found herself excelling in both sword fighting and her school work. Nicki found herself spending more and more time with Annabeth, as they shared all their classes together because they were in the same grade.

Ethan had weaselled his way into all of the same activities as Nicki and Annabeth, thanks to a lot of grovelling and pleading with Chiron.

Much to Nicki's disappointment, Grover had been disappearing all over the country to help newly discovered demigods find their way to safety, meaning he wasn't at camp a lot. Whenever the saytr was at camp, he and Nicki were inseparable.

Having grown fond of the two teenagers, Peleus allowed Ethan and Nicki to spend their free evenings at Thalia's tree.

With Thalia off leading the hunt and collecting new demigods, Nicki saw her sister figure even less than before. She found solace in spending time at Thalia's pine tree. While Ethan would never admit it, he missed the spiky black-haired girl almost as much as Nicki did.

"I feel guilty." Ethan mused, continuing to kick his legs above Nicki's head. He stared at the copper-scaled dragon whose head was resting in Nicki's lap. "I feel like I shouldn't be happy here."

A pit of guilt bubbled in Nicki's stomach. Everything they had been taught in the Titan Army, everything their friends died for, was the exact opposite of what they were doing now.

Nicki never agreed with the gods, and she wouldn't lie and say she wasn't tempted to sway from her mission while she was on Mount Othrys.

"E... We did what we had to do. Everyone did. You made a difference. Thomas, Luke, everyone, they didn't die for nothing. They made a change in the world. The ideology might have been wrong but your hearts were in the right place."

"Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that we're good people?"

Nicki shut her book with a gentle sigh. "I never believed anything else of any of you. You're good people, E, I promise you that."

The older boy nodded.

Since the Battle of Manhattan, steady trickles of Titan Army members had stumbled their way back across the Camp border.

No one mentioned the war. No one mentioned what side anyone took. No one mentioned their parents. Together, they mourned for their friends and worked for a better camp.