kaleidoscope gold ● jason grace

in

 Nico was glad Piper was next to him as he led the way.

Truthfully, for the past few months he had grown tired of being an outsider. What Thalia Grace had told him a couple of years ago was finally ringing true. 'We're all going to accept you, Nico', she had said. 'It's about time you stop hiding.'

"What are you thinking about?" Piper asked breezily.

"Just concentrating."

"On what? The dirt?"

He involuntarily snorted. "Shut up, Mclean." Maybe both of them were outsiders, really.

They reached a door built into the side of the door. Nico turned around to face his friends. "Alright guys, from here it gets," he grinned eerily, mostly to scare Leo. "Spooky."

"For once, can we have a normal field trip?" Leo muttered.

Percy immediately perked up. "With the Frizz? No way."

"Okay," Annabeth patted her boyfriend's arm, like she was comforting an idiotic Chihuahua. "Nico, go on."

"Frank, do you have the barley cakes?" Nico asked, in a tone that implied he better have the barley cakes. "We need to eat them now."

Hazel helped pass them around. Nico wished his son of Hades abilities included being immune to poison, but alas, he had to choke down the dry wheat cracker like everyone else.

"Alright," he coughed. "Just stick close together, and maybe we can avoid getting lost or going insane."

"Yipee." Leo groaned.

"The House of Hades is below us," Nico explained as they walked. It wasn't too dark, but Leo still created a ball of fire to help illuminate the ground. "When the archaeologists first excavated this site, they thought they'd found the Necromanteion. Then they realized the ruins were too recent, so they decided it was the wrong spot. They were actually right the first time. They just didn't dig deep enough."

They turned a corner and stopped. In front of them, the tunnel ended in a huge block of stone.

"A dead end?" Percy asked

"A test," Nico corrected. "Hazel?"

Hazel stepped forward. She placed her hand on the rock, and the entire boulder crumbled to dust

Annabeth frowned, "so only a child of Hades would be able to enter?"

Nico nodded. "Theoretically." He didn't want to guess, but he figured Daria might be able to destroy the wall just as easily as Hazel did. Maybe even a really willful child of Demeter could do the same.

On the first step was a gleaming chalice nearly overflowing with a dark-green liquid.

"Our poison," Piper guessed grimly.

Frank sighed, "I don't suppose any of you read Harry Potter."

Nico drank from the chalice, then offered it to Percy. Blurting out the words, "trust, old friend." He didn't know where it had come from, feeling a little bit like Chiron when he said it.

Percy raised an eyebrow, drinking the poison without hesitation. They held eye contact and Nico was struck with the overwhelming feeling one got after realizing how long they've known someone.

Frank went last; the chalice turned to smoke in his hands. Nico nodded, satisfied, turning to Hazel and gesturing to the stairs. "After you, sister."

Nico wanted to walk all the way to the doors in silence. The House of Hades was a temple after all. It deserved respect.

Apparently, Piper and Leo didn't think so. "Hey Nico, before we rescue them, you got any dirt on Jason as a weird middle schooler or something?" Leo asked, interrupting what had been a peaceful descent into hell.