A lone figure huddled near shore, listening to the roar of the river which he sat a few feet from, with the distant moans of ghouls and souls echoing in his ear.
He sat huddled next to a tree, greenless, all the remain was it's lifeless, black frame. It's branches drooped towards the boy as if to wrap him in it's shadows.
Things were going as normal as a half-blood for him.
As a son of Hades, his duties of course, includes making campers jump whenever he morphs out of nowhere next to them, or giving people the creeps with his so-call deathly presence.
He had shadow-traveled for a little walk next to the River of Styx.
No one like a child of Hades would had loved nothing more but to have a nice, relaxing walk here, in the Underworld, in his father's gloomy realm. With the ghouls in the Field of Punishment screaming daily and eternally is sure nice background music.
Basically, it's a perfect place to sit down and have a picnic, or have a warm family reunion.
Okay, he'll just be honest, he need a break from Camp Half-Blood. Nico doesn't necessarily hate other half-bloods, but being among them made the line clear between where he belong, and where he does not.
No matter that there's now a Hades Cabin in camp, no matter that Hades will be now more welcome up above in Olympus, it doesn't make any difference.
Just as the dead can never go back to life, the discriminated treatment of the children of the god of the underworld is a boundary no one can erase.
Nico shuffled closer to the bank of the river, until he say cross-legged at the edge of the bank, where he found a pair of sunken black eyes of a pale faced boy staring back at him.
The reflection suddenly morphed and changed into a woman, she raised her hand in greeting. The hand was masked behind a black silk glove.
"Mom."
The woman smiled, as if she's glad to be recognized.
Why the heck is the River of Styx showing these to him?
When the surface rippled once more, Nico caught his breath. A big lump formed in his throat as the memories came flooding back.
One moment she was a girl with freckles dashed across her cheeks, in shiny silver clothes and her eyes hidden under a cap, he couldn't see her face.
But in the corner of his eyes, he saw someone else, though it flashes by so fast, Nico couldn't focus on more than a pair of blue ocean eyes. She, more of the two person opened their lips and out spoke two voices, saying different things in harmony.
They both weren't smiling. Or giving a tint of warmth.
'I'm glad someone else is taking my place...'
"You really should let go..."
'You may not be able to speak to me again...'
"Though nobody can really blame you..."
The two voices harmonized, as they said in one,
"It does not do good, to dwell on memories and forget how to live."
Then she was gone. The surface of the River of Styx, as still as mirror.
When Nico was staring at the water for who-knew-how-long, just when he was near the verge of giving up thinking it was hallucination, a reflection of a girl once again appeared.
She beamed. "Nico."
Took his brain long enough to spun around, meeting a pair of glittering Caribbean blue eyes.
"Z-Zoe..." Nico noticed she's holding a basket. "How the heck are you here?"
An evil smile crept onto the girl's face, sending a small shiver down his spine.
"I hitched a ride with the Kindly Ones, I think...I just think... I traded Percy for it. Come on! We're going!"
"Huh? Where?" Nico's feet were barely touching the ground as the Daughter of Poseidon dragged him off.
Zoe spun around so fast, the basket almost hit him in the face. Her blue orbs sparkled as her lips stretched up in a smile.
She grabbed yet another sandwich (It was her fifth, Nico counted), and throw it towards Nico.
He stared down at it in confusion.
"Why," she beamed, swinging the basket in this merry way, skipping off. "Some nice tuna sandwiches are just not meant to be eaten alone, huh?" she winked. "that's just maniacal."
Nico couldn't help but smile as he trailed behind Zoe. He took one look behind him :
A lone spirit, rippling across the surface of the river; with the same freckles and baseball cap pulled low over her eyes that Nico recognise all too much the same.
He had only seconds before the figure disappeared again. He didn't quite caught her expression, and he didn't dare look back either.
Though, Nico swear, he caught her smiling.
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Dedicated to Bookloverfan.
