Book 2: Oaths and Victories.

Chapter 3: Facing yourself.

I've been given way too much power my dudes.

You know what isn't cool? Forcing someone to come out! Fuck that noise! No, I will not change my mind!

I like about this chapter, particularly, that Nico was ready to throw himself at danger without thought, but the moment there's a plan involved he's suddenly complaining.

Περσι

Seeing Iapetus again was staggering in more ways than one. It forced him to face himself in a slanted perspective, and it's only the beginning.

Tartarus, it seemed, sought to tear into the core of your being and bring the most repulsive aspects of yourself into the surface. If your mind didn't get shredded in the process, that is.

It would change them, like it had every other soul in its dominium, wrap them into something unrecognizable. Something monstrous.

The revelation takes time to make itself known on his head, after getting saved from the Empusai, after sharing meals in Hermes' shrine, after walking side-by-side to the forest of curses, where the façade shattered. Much later, when the Arai have dug their claws on them both, cursing them for every someone who'd thought ill of them in death, when he sees Tartarus' truth.

The pit isn't a place, is a living breathing organism, an ancient, deadly, amalgamated organism. And it had no intention of letting them leave unharmed, if they left at all.

He wonders, for the first time in a while, about Nico, about the time he spent in this hellhole, and how he managed to remain human despite it. It's the first time he's ever really considered him beyond the actions he's shown Percy, the words he has told him.

Has he always been doing this? With everyone he's met? He blacks out with that thought. When he wakes up again, there's no more Arai, and the forest is nowhere in sight, instead he's inside a building.

Damasen's hut is another taste of flickering peace they're blessed with, short-lived as their stay will have to be. Its owner trapped in an eternal loop of pain and destruction, simply because he was too kind for a monster.

Everything about it irks him to no end, but particularly how it's turned the titan bitter and demoralized. Unwilling to help due to the terrible trap he's kept himself in.

At least, that's what it sounds like when Annabeth confronts him. And he trusts her judgment.

But even that might be tested by Tartarus.

Νικο

They wait for actual hours.

It may sound surprising but even after falling for seven days, waiting for more than a few minutes is still incredibly tedious.

Luckily, before he can say fuck it and go look for the scepter alone, Reyna reaches them.

She looks ragged, sleepless, panting, bloodied, and walks beside a Pegasus that has seen better days. They take both onto the ship, the Pegasus to the stable, and Leo sits Reyna down with a cup of ambrosia in the main deck-

Honestly, he thinks they should let her rest, but as soon as the cup's empty both her and Jason are dragging him back down.

Romans, he thinks bitterly, are very much like soldiers.

There's something to be said, about how admiration can tint someone's perspective, in that Reyna and Jason are entering the tomb of one of their heroes, but to Nico it's just a building. A building with open doors that screams trouble from every angle, but that's a good sign right now, because powerful magical items tend to be in places like this one.

True to form, the moment they get all the way through the entrance, the doors shut behind them with a loud thud, and the torches spread throughout light up in progression. This would be rightfully intimidating, he figures, to anyone who hasn't been a victim of the Mansion of Night.

And then he gets used to the lightning and sees the one god he's actually convinced has it out for him specifically. Unlike all other creatures that hate him over some slight his father had done them.

Eros looks different than when he saw him last, instead of the messy black hair and pale skin, he now has copper skin and black curls. It's the red eyes that tell him who this is, but hates how telling the god's new appearance is.

But the situation was different back then too, he'd been exhausted from his time under Minos in the labyrinth, and his head was a battlefield not unlike the one forming around him. He'd been bitter and guarded, appalled by his own emotions, and disgusted that they could stem from someone who'd done nothing to earn it.

And Eros knew exactly how to play to those weaknesses, pushing and prodding, demanding he acknowledge all the things that distorted him.

He's not alone now, and he's lived horrors far greater than anything his memories concoct for what'll happen to him if he's discovered. Tartarus has made sure his previous fear feels like a dust mote.

Eros pushes anyways, only he isn't quite Eros, eyes changing every so often, words wrapping with two different voices; he's Cupid too. The dissonance helps a little, as does the presence of Reyna and Jason.

But there's something in his wording that's sticking with him, something that feels very much like a loophole.

"You waste your energy demigods, the only way to conquer me is to face me" the god insists.

Oh.

Oh.

This, he realizes, is something he's already faced.

It'd been aimless, something to occupy his mind with as he fell, an admission he hadn't really allowed to seep in. But one he hadn't run from either, and he could've, it would've been so easy, to hide from it, to avoid him.

The next swing hits with force, revealing the god's startled expression, and there's a sort of validation on it. That he's right, that the admission didn't have to be verbal, or in front of near-strangers, for it to matter.

He notes, as he pushes the god back, a faint smell of sea-salt and roses, and sees the god go pale for but a moment. That passes soon after.

Eros, though, does concede to his defeat and gives them the scepter.

"You will have to admit it eventually, son of Hades" the god warns.

The same words as last time, in the exact same tone, but, again, it's different because he's changed. He faces the god fully, for once not afraid of his effect.

"Perhaps," he admits, "but who listens to it is for me to decide"