Title: Death
People(s): Nico and another, undisclosed OC.
Summary: Death. You know death. You've lost your entire family, but your immortal parent, to death. You hate death with every fiber of your being. You want death to... well, die. But you love death. You relish in its wake. You love how it smoothly works. You hate death -- and love it. I understand why, but that won't save you now. Nico's POV, things clear up in the end.
Rated: T, for dark theme.
You hate death. You wish death would go and die, although that's quite impossible. You hate death for every little thing it's done. For every time it hit you and your life. You hate death, and that's something I understand. I hated death too, before I learned about my father. I hated death for taking away the one guiding light in my life. For killing Bianca, my mother before, and for -- I assumed -- killing my father. My father is still alive, you know. Well, most obviously. He lurks in every dark corner of the world, the shadows bend to his will. The dead call his name in fear.
And you, you have seen him in your life. He's taken your entire family, but your immortal parent.
Who was the first to die? Oh yes, your father. Or should I say stepfather? Don't glare at me, I'm telling the truth. How... strange that you deny the very existence of the gods, although I don't blame you. They have caused you misery after misery.
Your father, yes. He died from work. He worked himself to death to try to give you, your mother, and your three half-brothers a chance at life. He died slowly, from sheer exhaustion, from hunger, from the fact that he could never be what your mother wanted. Your stepfather loved you. Oh how you loathe the word "love"! Yes, I know you loathe it. You've never been able to accept it. You've never been able to accept the fact that some might feel this way towards you.
Is it because all the people who could ever have loved you, ever given you that comfort and knowledge that someone values your life, have died? Your father, he died from exhaustion. Your mother, she died from what -- sickness?
Or was it hunger? Or an overdose of the anti-depressants?
She died, leaving you with three young boys, all five-and-a-half years old. She was thin, barely more then a skeleton by the time the Fates took her. It was a merciful death, and she was looking forward to it.
Ha! You look at me with scorn in your eyes, pure hate. If you only knew.... If you only knew.... Your mother wouldn't have survived anyway, as frail as she was. I wonder how your real father (don't give me that look) ever felt attracted to her. She was sickly ever since she had you, but she never once complained. If anything, she felt the welcoming embrace of death, rather than how you see it. Don't you get it now? Death has been part of your life since you were born.
Although, I can tell in your eyes that you are still defiant. You need me to bring up another example. Well then, I shall.
The next to die was your half-brother. The sickly, frail one that was born badly. I'm not sure about the details. Wasn't he supposed to die after he was born? Tobis, that was his name.
Didn't he become so sick at the end that you had to feed him? You fed him though -- I suppose that, somewhere in your heart there is enough good to feed a sickly, already condemned to death, child. He always loved to read. His favorite book -- wasn't it Snow White? Ha, such a boy like him would never have survived the slums anyway. He was marked for death by the time he was born, and you know it.
You're glare is even harder now. I suppose I should comend you for being so stubborn. You know it would speed things up if you just admitted it.
The gods are real, my friend, and they've been looking at your life for a very long time. You still do not believe me, yet, I know things about your life even you don't know. You left after Tobis died -- his death told you to leave. Or was it because you knew you couldn't take care of the last two people in your godsforsaken family?
Kyle died next. Now, this is a surprise to you. Kyle was the strongest. The toughest. The one most likely to live beyond all of that. He was also the kindest. You know how he died? Eh? He died giving up the last bit of food for his brother, Thomas. He died from starvation, when the last fellow wouldn't give them enough food to survive. It was the middle of winter, you know.
The cold set in around Thomas. His brothers were gone. His father was gone. His mother died. His sister left him to die.
You are still in denial! You are so arrogant, down to your last breath. It is something when, even now, you do not believe in the gods. What will it take for me to convince you?
You love death. You won't admit it to yourself. But you owe your life to the irony of the entire thing that grips me. You owe your life to death itself, and yet your entire life has been destroyed by death.
You and I, we are alike in this way.
My father is Hades, lord of the dead. Your father is Thanatos, god of death. The person who has arrived.
You stare at your death, girl, and it will all become better once you go to the place where your father awaits.
Nico stared at the dead girl in front of him. A daughter of Thanatos, a disbeliever in the gods, a girl whose entire family was set to die the moment Thanatos touched her mother. If Nico didn't know better, the girl looked almost peaceful in death. Nico shook his head, leaving the dead body to disappear into the shadows by some divine force.
Finally, the girl thought. Peace from death. Hello death, my one hate- and love.