Unspooling the threads

Lost on accident

Souls entwined.

There's pavement against his feet, wind howling at his ears, heart hammering in his chest, there's flashing lights on the ground, cold on his face. Nico wakes up with a start, the smell of smoke stuck in his nose; he quickly looks around but sees only the dim green glow of Greek fire on obsidian.

The underworld is quiet as usual, nothing out of the ordinary, but Nico can't shake the feeling of unease that has settled in his bones.

Given that he's not going back to sleep any time soon; Nico tries to make sense of the dream he had instead. Demigods, according to the very few who still talk to Nico now that he's been claimed, are known to have prophetic dreams; so he needs to know what it was about.

He'd been running, clearly, from something, but there hadn't been fear exactly, mostly annoyance and the need to not get caught. There's also the smell of smoke still lingering despite there being no normal fire, and...

And Nico has a sudden flash of Leo in the back of his mind, like it has something to do with him; so Nico worries a little, sinks into the shadows to grab a pomegranate. The Styx comment had been the key to defeating Kronos, so Nico's sure this one has just as much weight; and the weight of the fruit in his pocket makes him feel a little more secure.

Maybe he should try going to the desert again, try and see if Leo knows anything of what's happening now, particularly after such a dream; but he stops himself, unsure how to face him. Not when he could've visited sooner, or kept in contact through Iris, or some other third thing.

It's just that everything got complicated very quickly, and people were dying, and the people at camp though he was a traitor, and he had to help Percy with the whole becoming invincible; and he also had the revelation that his general attraction to Leo is exactly that, attraction.

He pulls the pomegranate off his pocket, inspecting it for something to do with his hands; and wonders about myths and how different they are to reality. He also wonders about Leo, still trying to connect him with any of the gods, and realizes, instead, how little he knows the other despite how deeply he feels for him.

He wakes up in a moving bus, motor humming insistently beneath him, face cold from the window he's leaning into; there's someone sitting at his left, familiar and not in tandem. Dark skin, but different from Leo's, something ethereal about her features; there's instinct clamoring in Leo's ears, trying to tell him something, but he can't understand it.

To the right of the dark-skinned beauty is a larger figure, built for combat, instinct clamors again, louder, but Leo is still hopeless for what it's trying to tell him. His hands go for his chest and finds something sharp under his shirt, glancing at his ride-mates to make sure they're not paying him attention, he pulls it out.

It turns out to be a necklace, a thick pure black string long enough to pass around Leo's head, tied to a silver upside-down triangle with a circular hole in the middle; on impulse, Leo takes it to his eye and has to bite his lip not to gasp at what he sees. Lines strewn before him, a myriad of watered down color except for the two nearest to him.

Leo's mind insists that the dark-skinned beauty is Piper, his best friend, and the warrior looking blonde is Jason, the newest addition to their group. Piper's line is bright magenta, bold and attention grabbing, just like her his mind quips, Jason's is a blue so light it may as well be white, and that's fitting too because he feels like lightning waiting to strike.

That's not right, he's Leo's friend, he shouldn't feel threatened by him.

Friend?

No.

Leo doesn't know him.

Leo has been attending Wilderness school with Piper for years.

No.

Leo's never met her before.

Stop fighting.

He was missing something.

No.

He was missing someone.

His head aches, a flash of impossibly green fire, of purple strings dancing too close to copper ones, pale skin turned bluish under dark eyes, black feathers, and the scent of fresh earth.

Oh.

This is your role.

Duty.

Yes.

Somehow, Leo had a feeling he knew duty better than most.