The Coming of Nico di Angelo

We're Doomed...

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The Winter Solstice Camp Meeting.

BEGINNING NOTES

Chapter Rating: General Audiences
Content Warning: None
Word Count: 3527

And, our weekly Monday postings begin again! I posted late at night today to give stragglers the chance to read Friday's chapter, but I'll be posting in the mornings starting next week, I promise.

And all the characters are owned by JK Rowling, or Rick Riordan.

Credits at the end.

____________________ANNABETH____________________

"Oh my gods," Will half-whispered, half-mumbled to himself. "Oh my gods..."

"Where could he be?" Hazel turned to Frank with tears in her eyes. "What did she do to him?"

"I'm going to kill her," Jason vowed. "I don't care if she's immortal, I am going to kill that--"

"Heroes!" Chiron called the meeting back to attention. "I agree that this--news--is unsettling, but losing our heads will not fix the situation."

The winter solstice meeting had convened, but whatever Chiron had wanted to discuss fell to the side. Percy had recounted his dream of Hades, Persephone, and Hecate, and, in the process, delivered the news about Nico's disappearance and the impending war.

Annabeth stayed stoic during the entire recount. All she could think about was how stupid she'd acted, how arrogant and emotional she'd been. She knew Nico had evil controlling his actions, knew something had whispered in his ear since at least the second week they'd arrived at Hogwarts. Nico resembled Riddle in nature, sure, but he'd never acted like Riddle before.

Before Hogwarts, anyway.

Instead of realizing something was off--like a child of Athena should--she buried her suspicions down and down, so as not to confront an uncomfortable truth. Her fatal flaw again; hubris told her that her gut instinct--Nico was acting like Riddle--was correct, rather than searching for a less obvious answer. She could've identified the situation before it escalated, or, at the very least, talked to Nico about what was going on. If he didn't realize the danger of the voice in his head, he'd tell Annabeth upfront. If he did but didn't care, Annabeth would've been able to alert Chiron, who could've warned Hades and the other gods.

No; instead Annabeth operated with arrogance--chose to operate with arrogance--and allowed Hecate to destroy the mortal world to get her spot on the Olympic Council. She, like everyone else, had played into the goddess's hands.

"Lou Ellen," Chiron continued, "has your mother clued you in on anything that might help us delay or stop the war?"

"I..." Lou Ellen looked startled; her face was a ghostly white. "Yes, I... but, I never thought... I never..."

The realism of the situation overwhelmed her. She broke into sobs, shaking and holding her arms. Will put his arm around her, and she buried her face into his shoulder.

"It's okay, Lou," he said, though his voice sounded distant. "You didn't know; none of us knew."

After a moment, Lou got ahold of herself. She spoke into Will's shoulder. "It wasn't supposed to be like this... it was meant to be a blessing..." she began, her voice shaking. "Mom started appearing to me in dreams more and more often during the Second Giant War..."