The Ambassador of the Gods

17. End Begins Here

-- 18th December 2009 --

When the Shadowhunters got back to the Hades cabin, they found Nico's stuff pulled out from his bag and strewn all over his bunk and the floor around it. A litre bottle or two of water, full and empty glass vials, rolled-up clothes coming apart crumpled. Nico was nowhere to be seen. There was the sound of running water coming from the showers.

Chiron had shut things down real quick after Nico left. He hadn't quelled any of the Camp's worries about the dangerous outsiders, but Nico had gotten them angry about a different thing long enough for Chiron to convince them to let Magnus and the Shadowhunters go to bed for the meantime. He seemed convinced that the demigods were easily distractible enough to forget their fervour by tomorrow.

The shower turned off. A couple minutes later Nico walked out, barefoot and in a t-shirt and pyjama pants, drying his hair with a thin white towel.

He stopped a couple steps into the room, looking at them. Isabelle was sitting on the edge of the coffin-bed opposite Nico's bunk, her long legs swinging over the side.

He lowered the towel. Eventually, he said, "You burned down my grove?"

Clary offered, "We're really sorry."

"Your grove?" muttered Jace.

Alec interrupted, "Jace means it was an accident. The fire might have been magic. And at the very least," he added hopefully, "burned down groves can't tell anyone about the Ambassador."

Nico frowned and crossed the room to his bunk, looking too reluctant to agree. Magnus explained, "The torch was from the Hecate cabin. I did not expect it to fight back."

"How about," Nico shot back, "don't steal from the Hecate cabin?" He balled his towel up and tossed it onto the bed.

Isabelle hopped down from her perch and leaned on the stone wall next to his bunk as Nico waved off the darkness gathering over his shoulders irritatedly, shoving some of his stuff back into his bag, this time ignoring all order.

Izzy said, "You think that we don't have a reason to care about what happens here, but we do, you know."

He promptly gave up, swept everything to one side, and sat down on the edge of his bed. Isabelle didn't falter. "It's not really our style to just sit around waiting for someone else to fix our problems and then leave. If fixing the barrier means Greeks and Shadowhunters are never going to make contact again, I-- we don't want to leave this realm without helping it."

Nico looked at her. Isabelle was skewed off-axis, one shoulder against the wall and ankles crossed in heeled leather knee-high boots, long hair down past her shoulders. Demigods never really looked dangerous. That was the difference with Shadowhunters.

Izzy stared back at him. Izzy was serious.

Nico sighed and looked at her friends. Clary and Jace were curled up next to each other on Jace's bed, and they both switched quickly to supportive, determined expressions. It didn't look like this was something they'd discussed (supposedly they'd been too busy burning down ancient groves, for the second time), but so did the rest of her friends.

Eventually Nico got sick of looking at their determined faces and turned away. "Do they need help?" he asked the wind.

"You're only saying that because you're bitter that they think they don't need you," Izzy replied easily, shifting her weight onto her feet. "If you don't want us interfering with your realm because we might break it more, that's fine. Just don't leave us hanging thinking we're being useful." Nico narrowed his eyes. "It's already backfired once," she pointed out.