𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗘 ━━ l. valdez

ii ━━ i'll tell you i've been there too (and none of it matters)

02. chapter two

━━━━━━━━ ( 💫 ) ━━━━━━━━

NICO AND I HASTILY LEFT THE THRONE room of hades' palace. he led me through the halls and out the large door.

it was a little bit awkward at first between the two of us. nico nor i were exactly the talkative type, so heavy silence was what the first few minutes of our walk consisted of.

i liked nico immediately, before we even got to talking. he just seemed like the type of person i'd get along with. maybe it was the steely look in his eyes, his cool and quiet demeanor, or maybe just the fact that he was the first child of the underworld i had ever met besides myself.

hades told nico and i that we were like siblings. i questioned it at first, but now i kind of understood it. maybe we weren't siblings by blood and dna, but we were most certainly siblings by experience. being children of the gods of the underworld, the world looked different to you than it did to most. also, the world sees you differently than it sees others. you may be seen as weird or creepy by people who haven't even bothered to get to know you.

after walking in silence with nico for what must have been a long, we had managed to flee hades' palace and were passing the fields of asphodel. i could see the judgement pavilion just off in the distance.

i wasn't able to bare the silence any longer as i stared into the ghostly flowers of asphodel that blanketed the black grass. the complete noiselessness of the realm made it all the more substantial.

i turned to nico. "why haven't i seen you at camp half-blood? have you been looking for percy?"

i didn't know exactly why i felt the need to burden him with questions. nico didn't really know me, so he probably didn't want to play 20 questions, but my curiosity got the better of me. i think i wanted to just know more about the world after missing so much time. maybe i could at least meet the world before it would get ripped from my hands by gaea.

nico looked down uncomfortably, his own stygian iron sword swinging at his side (we both had similar swords as children of the underworld, but nico's didn't have the silver knife attachment). "uh, yeah."

"have you had any luck finding him?" i questioned with bubbling interest. "back at camp half-blood we figured he must be at the roman camp with no idea who he is, so, you haven't seen any trace of him?"

"no." nico shook his head. "i've been looking, but haven't found anything."

nico regarded the topic of percy jackson's disappearance with a faint distaste. i sensed some sort of bitterness, but i held my tongue.

i heard the sound of cerberus, the three headed dog guarding the entrance to the underworld, barking, and i immediately panicked. nico assured me that because we were children of the underworld, cerberus wouldn't mind us.

we passed by cerberus with no issue. he actually licked nico's arm which nico didn't seem to really like, judging by the 'eugh.'

i could easily tell nico was accustomed to the rituals of demigod life, dealing with mythical creatures of the underworld, being asked stupid questions by clueless new demigods, having a terrifying father.