I usually leave notes until the end but this was a commission for Ragemoon over at DeviantART; her character Morris is in this and I don't take credit for him any more than I take credit for Uncle Rick's work. Phew, done.

Coastlines

January

It was almost too cold to be sitting outside. Drizzle stuck to Nico's hair, dripping down his neck and stinging his eyes. He was sitting a mile or so away from a thunderstorm, his feet up on a park bench, ignoring the strange looks emitting from the café twenty feet up the beach. He, Reyna and Coach Hedge had stopped briefly in Ireland while escorting the Athena Parthenos home and once everything quietened down he returned to the most desolate stretch of coastline he had ever seen. The café was the only landmark for miles and although during summer months the area would be teeming with tourists, in mid-January it was deserted. It was perfect.

Everyone had asked him to stay, of course. Celebrations at both camps still hadn't ended even after all this time. Nico couldn't go anywhere in the States without bumping into some sort of demigod party so he had shadow-travelled as far away as possible just for some peace. Still, this place was pretty grim. Watching the thunderstorm roll across the waves, Nico wondered why he kept returning to the coastline. Well, he knew why. He just didn't know why he still bothered. He should have gone into the Underworld, since it was warm, at least – and the only place his 'gifts' made him feel really at home. But no, he had to keep sitting around, feeling sorry for himself and going toward anything that reminded him of Percy. Gods, he was pathetic.

It was time to start appreciating the good stuff in his life. That's what Hazel had said not long before he left America. He had to separate his issues and tackle them slowly while taking the time to appreciate the positives. Clearly, she had been reading self-help books. Still. The storm was nice. It was raging toward the beach, whipping up waves until they were the size of houses then sending them crashing down with the force of an old sea god. If he had been caught in that, Nico would have been squashed like a fly on a windscreen.

Wait.

Someone was caught in the waves.

Blinking hard, Nico stood up and strode toward the water's edge, keeping his eyes fixed on the blur of colour that was being tossed around like a ragdoll toward the shore. He caught a glimpse of black hair and his breath caught in his throat. No. It couldn't be. There was no way Percy would get caught in a storm like that. Percy could create a storm like that. A sudden surge in the current sent the figure hurtling into the shallows, face down. Before Nico could haul him out –presuming it was a 'him'– another figure burst out of the sea. It was a fish the size of a drakon, complete with a spiky dorsal fin and disgusting odour of polluted water – the creature could only be mythological. Not for the first time, Nico wished that he had stayed at Camp Half-Blood if only so he knew how to kill all the monsters.

Pulling his sword from his belt, Nico waded through the waves to jab at the creature's underbelly, searching for a weak spot. Its scales were the size of dustbin lids, glimmering murky green. Despite its size it thrashed around the feet-deep water, partially-submerged, apparently trying to eat Nico alive. Great. Unless he goaded it up the beach to suffocate, there was no way he could kill the thing by himself – he couldn't even see its tail. Risking a glance back, Nico saw that the guy was still face-down in the surf, not moving. Blood billowed through the surrounding water, enough that Nico suspected the fish monster had teeth, or was maybe really good at throwing people into rocks. There were squares of ambrosia in his pocket but if the guy was human then there was no point in shadow-travelling with him to a safe place. If the guy was a demigod and had somehow survived the blood loss and trauma – well, it was about to be a moot point because Nico was about to be dead too.

Just as Nico was starting to think he should leave the dead guy and shadow-travel inland to make a plan, an object whistled past Nico's ear and lodged itself underneath the monster's scales. Seizing the opportunity, Nico bounded forward and stabbed the fish in the throat (did fish have throats? It was a squishy bit and that's all Nico was interested in). Moments later the entire monster had exploded into dust and dissolved into the wind. The object wedged into its scales fell into the surf and Nico waded out to retrieve it. Up close, it wasn't a spear like he had assumed. It was a trident, made of the same Stygian iron as Nico's sword. He had never seen a weapon like it and made a mental note to ask Hades if he had done a deal with Poseidon to make a new type of weaponry.

"Don't worry about me, then," a voice rasped. Nico whirled around, almost tripping in the sand, in time to see the clearly-not-dead-or-mortal guy collapse into the surf. Splashing through the water and barely registering that the storm had subsided as soon as the giant fish dissolved, Nico grasped the demigod under the armpits and dragged him onto the beach, forcing a square of ambrosia down his throat. His hair wasn't black, like Nico had thought – it was fiery red and longer than Percy's but covered in tar, with just a few strands glimmering through the dirt. There was blood on his face – he seemed to have ripped his lip open – and blood was seeping through his t-shirt. Lacerations covered his shins and seemed to continue underneath a pair of swim trunks. The ambrosia was healing a few superficial cuts and bruises but clearly he needed medical attention. Short of taking him to Camp Half Blood, Nico didn't have a clue what to do with him.

"My mother." His eyes had opened and Nico saw with a jolt that they were the exact sea green as Percy's. Either they were directly related or the gods were playing another cruel joke. "Take me to my mother. She lives near here. The beach house."

"What beach house?" But those eyes had closed again.

Nico was about to yell at the sky when he remembered that he, Reyna and Coach Hedge had passed a ramshackle cottage, right on the beach, when they had passed through. It was nondescript but kind of beautiful; one of the things that had attracted Nico to Ireland. He hadn't realised it was inhabited. Then again, they had been travelling at night and fighting off eighty monsters apiece. Picturing the cottage in his head, Nico grasped the demigod by the wrists, closed his eyes and concentrated.

May

Morris missed the Hades kid.

Morris had been out cold when they arrived home, but his mother had explained how the kid hammered on her front door, heaved Morris over the threshold, given Anne-Marie some ambrosia and shadow-travelled back to wherever he came from. Anne-Marie had been mildly affronted that her child's saviour hadn't stuck around for introductions – "I mean, I'm your mother, I should know his name!" – but he had attended to Morris with speed that probably saved his life. Now all his scratches were just scars and he could roam the sea just as he always had. Too bad he couldn't find the lip ring that had been pulled out during his fight with the fish monster.

Unfortunately, Morris' dad was still pretty pissed about the whole demigods-saving-the-world thing, so he still couldn't swim without suffering some sort of abuse from a minion. Sometimes it sucked to be an Oceanus kid – especially since most other demigods were repelled by the sight of a Titan's kid, not least one with freaky enough powers that 'he' could pretty easily become 'she' and grow a fishtail in the water. Anne-Marie said it was a gift, being so changeable… "You're like the ocean – you can transform yourself in the blink of an eye," she often told him. Still. Morris would have liked to have not-repelled the Hades kid long enough to thank him for getting him home.

The sun was out over the beach and Morris had spent the day in the sea, far out from any tourists. Retying his knotted hair and pulling on the shoes he'd hidden underneath a rock, he decided it was time to head home for the day. As he turned to trudge up the beach, the shadows around him rippled and the Hades kid materialised. To say he looked surprised to actually see Morris was an understatement.

"I thought you were dead," he spluttered, eyes widening with shock. His voice sounded rusty, like he hadn't used it for a while.

"Thanks to you I'm not." The kid was cute, and Morris wanted him to stick around long enough for introductions. "Want to find out why?"

I've been commissioned to do a sequel which is a little bit terrifying so please let me know what you think of this one!