☾ The Child of Artemis ☾

10. 𝙰 𝙳𝚞𝚖𝚋, 𝙳𝚊𝚖 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚖 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚢 𝙿𝚞𝚕𝚌𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝙿𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎

          Hello, Faith Ford here. Sorry that Nico couldn't narrate. Some crazy things happened to him on our mini-quest. I am giving him some time to get over the quest. We took a train to the Hoover Dam. On the train, we talked about romance.

          "Do you ever think that romance is sometimes annoying?" Nico asked, breaking the silence."No, not sometimes..." I replied.

          "All the time!" Nico and I agreed.

          "What's the purpose?" Nico questioned.

          "What's the use of it?" I quizzed.

          "N -O - T - H - I - N - G."

          "Do you want to hear what happens in every romance literature, whether it be a movie or a book, or a TV series — in the world?"

          Nico laughed. "What?!"

          "The couple: 'I loooove yooooou.' Then, the girl: 'Bruh, you kept a secret from me! I'm mad at you!' The boy: tries to apologize and atone. 'Yo, I'm sooooooooooooooooo soooooooorrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeee.' The girl: still mad and dramatic as ever. 'I don't like you! I'm still mad!' The end: the couple gets back together and it's all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows."

          Nico howled in laughter. "Ha ha - Exactly! No need for romance! You need friendship!"

          He elbowed me. "Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaah!" I scream - whispered.

          Nico, unlike me, fell asleep and stayed asleep for the rest of the ride. I just stayed awake, bored. "We have reached Boulder City, Nevada! Take a tram to see the dam!" the conductor called.

          I woke my friend up and we ran to the tram going to the dam. The tram ride was about five minutes long, and we were basically there in no time. "I'm hungry," Nico decided, "I want to go to the dam snack bar."

          "Let us go then," I smiled wide, "to the dam snack bar. I'm craving for a dam burger."

          "I kind of crave dam chooks...and the dam dunny."

          "What?"

          "Chick hens and the baths room."

          "Oh."

          Sometimes, I forget that Australians don't say things like Americans do. We walked to the dam snack bar. I ordered a burger and Nico ordered chicken after using the restroom. We bought some candy to go and headed for the dam. We were walking down some steps, when Nico was acting really weird. First, he made a bizarre grimace at me. I looked at him in confusion. He threatened to fight me. "Nico, you're not acting like yourself," I said.

          "You a chicken?"

          "Something is wrong."

          It really was. Nico didn't speak in his normal Aussie accent and didn't use the Aussie slang he used just recently. "Chicken," he criticized as he nocked his arrow.

          I realized that he was not himself, instead an eidolon. Nico was about to shoot an arrow at me when I quickly threw one of my most useful weapons at his head, my boomerang - eraser. I also took out my trusty Graphitide, just in case. The eidolon stayed put. I threw my boomerang at his feet, tripping him. Nico's head hit the railings with a klunk. I heard a shrill scream. "Why did you tackle your brother and why does he look like that?!"