The sky was inky black with grey cotton candy shaped clouds, twinkling stars were scattered all over the dark sky. Camp Half Blood seemed so peaceful at night. With messy hair as dark as the night sky, pale skin, and olive green eyes, Nico di Angelo was out of bed and wandering about the grounds late at night. But he wasn't alone, he had Mrs O' Leary walking right next to him, her tongue hanging out of her mouth. He looked at her and grinned, "You seem happy tonight."
Walking alone in the forest was dangerous, but if you have a huge black Hellhound and you're practically radiating death, who would want to even lay a finger on you?
Mrs O' Leary was hungry and Nico couldn't even get to sleep that night, so he took Mrs O' Leary out to the forest for some food. Not long into the forest, Mrs O' Leary's head shot up instinctively, as if hearing something, like a squirrel or some monster. She then began to run in that direction, "Hey!" Nico shouted after her.
Mrs O' Leary was a huge dog, he was trying so hard to keep up with her. She started to shadow travel a few metres at a time before she stopped and got into a pouncing stance. When he finally caught up with her, he was out of breath. Nico looked up to see that Mrs O' Leary had lead him to Zeus' Fist. Thanks to the moonlight that night, Nico was able to make out a figure of a girl, she was armed with a bow and arrow. A huge scorpion was standing opposite her. The scorpion was three metres long, it had jagged pincers, an armoured tail and a poisonous sting. The girl fired her arrows, but they just bounced off its armoured shell.
Without warning, Mrs O' Leary pounced on to the creature. Nico took this moment to grab the girl and helped her to her feet. "Who are you?" The girl asked, but there was no time to explain now, not when you've got two abnormally huge creatures behind you fighting.
"Later!" Nico answered, and they both headed for the protection of the dense forest. After a few minutes of half carrying and half leading the girl, Nico finally decided that they should probably shadow travel. After all, her leg was injured and she's got cuts on her arms and legs. In short, she was injured real badly. She was probably going to bleed to death or something. "Okay. Listen, whether you like it or not, we're gonna shadow travel."
"What? Wait! Shadow travel? Oh my gods! You're the Son of Hades?" She said, completely bewildered.
"Yup. Pleasure to meet you too." He said, "Anyway, we're gonna shadow travel already… You're going to bleed to death out here."
The girl let out a soft laughter. "I'm going to be all right."
Nico purposely nudged her sprained ankle and she groaned in pain. "Yeah. You're perfectly fine. I can see that." His words were just oozing with sarcasm, and he got hit on the back real hard. "Okay, okay!" he said laughingly. Wow. He was laughing? He hasn't laugh in a gajillion years or something. "Hold on tight." The girl hugged Nico's arm tightly and they were zooming through the darkness, feeling an icy pain and hearing weird noises
The next time they opened their eyes, they were at the fighting arena. A great wave of tiredness hit Nico, and he staggered back a few feet. "Are you all right?" The girl quickly grabbed Nico before he fell.
"Yeah. Just tired. A little." Nico explained. "Let's get you back to your cabin… which is…?" He asked.
"Oh. Demeter's. But I think I'll be all right from here. I think you're the one who needs the attention." And Nico looked up to see a pair of emerald green eyes that twinkled like the stars that night. Before he could say anymore, someone called out, "Gwen? Gwen? Where are you?" And a tall blonde dude stepped out of the shadows. Upon seeing the girl, his eyes widen. "Gwen!" It took a few seconds for Nico to let the information seep into his mind. The girl was called Gwen. She had pretty green eyes and belongs to the Demeter cabin. And she was limping to the tall blonde guy, maybe he was from the same cabin too. The blonde guy ran up to Gwen and locked her in his arms. " Gwyneth Andrews! Where were you? Do you know how worried we were? Thank the gods you're not dead!"
"Jared," She said. "I'm all right. If I was dead, I wouldn't even be here. It's thanks to Nico." She looked back at Nico and said, "Thanks a lot." She flashed him a dazzling smile.
"N-no problem." He stuttered stupidly.
Jared then let go of Gwen and faced Nico, "Yeah. Thanks, Nico." He said a little reluctantly and forced a smile. He turned back to Gwen and showed off his charming smile, "Let's go back and get those injuries treated. And on the way, you can tell me what had happened." He started to walk, but Gwen weighed him down. Apparently, she didn't want to leave yet.
Gwen turned back to Nico and limped back to him. She grabbed his hands and said, "Thanks." She smiled. "Thanks so much. And take care." She said it as if they were never going to meet each other again, but this is camp Half-Blood. The place where the probability of you meeting the same person is pretty high.
But Nico just said, "Yeah I will." And he returned a smile. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and Gwen smiled back at him. She let go of his hands and went back to Jared.
Nico watched them go off until they turned a corner and disappeared from sight. When she was holding his hands, he didn't want to let go of hers. Nico felt a strange elation.
After shadow traveling, Nico did feel tired and finally decided to retire back to his warm bed that awaits him in his cabin.
The morning light peeped in and this, made Nico wake up from his dreamless sleep. He stared at his black ceiling, and recalled what happened the previous night. Gwen, the girl with green eyes. Is she okay? Has she healed up already? Will she still be practicing today despite her injured ankle? Was she even awake now? Then he stopped. Why was he even thinking about her? Did she really matter that much to him? He reassured himself that tall blonde and handsome would take good care of her. He reluctantly got out of bed and realized he was still tired.
He headed for breakfast. And saw a girl sitting at the Demeter's table with her brothers and her sisters. But Nico just knew at that very moment that it was Gwen. It was probably because of her eyes that made him know instantly that it was her. The girl with green eyes. Now that it was bright and he could see, Nico took in as much information about this girl as much as possible. Her hair was the shade of chocolate brown, it was tied up into a neat ponytail, her green emerald eyes held his at that very moment, she smiled straight at Nico, and he just stupidly nodded once, as if saying "Morning to you too." Her face twisted into a curious and concerned look, "Are you all right?" Nico translated her facial expression. He nodded a few times and even gave her a faint smile.
Breakfast did not last forever, he was soon out and about, practicing sword fighting and prattling away in ancient Greek. It wasn't until he sat down and took a break did he realize that Gwen was sitting by the creek, a book in hand, boots off and swinging them freely over the water. Her weapon, a bow and a quiver of arrows, lay on the ground next to her. Nico hesitated for a while but walked up to her.
As he sat down next to her, Gwen looked up, her green eyes lighted up with glee when she realized that it was Nico. She put her book down on her lap and said, "So, how are you feeling?"
Nico swallowed his nervousness and managed to say, "Fine." Then, he gathered up all his courage and asked, "What about you?"
"I'm all right actually. Nothing like a little bit of nectar can't cure." She smiled. She bit her lip, as if trying to think what else to say, before it turned into awkward silence.
"Why were you in the forest?" They both said at the same time. This caused them both to laugh happily.
"I was looking for some game. I couldn't sleep last night… so I figured I could take a monster or two out and then go back and sleep." She answered, as she fiddled with her long green sleeves of her shirt. "What about you?"
Nico sighed, "I couldn't sleep too. So I took Mrs O' Leary— " And Nico sat there, as still as a rock. He had completely forgotten about Mrs O' Leary. Where was she? Did the scorpion thing kill her? Did she survive? Should he search the woods? Maybe he should.
"Nico?" Her soothing voice brought him back to reality. "What about Mrs O' Leary?"
"She's still in the woods." He answered shakily. Mrs O' Leary was more than a hellhound to him, she was his friend, (it might seem crazy but) she was the one that Nico seemed to talk to most of the time. And now, Mrs O' Leary was gone.
Gwen looked shocked, but the expression was wiped off her face after a while. And in place of it, determination took over. She thought about something before she started to pull on her boots and grab her bow and arrows. "Let's go find her." She suggested, as she stood up. She tossed her book to one of her cabin mates and looked back down at Nico, his expression was shock. He didn't expect that from a girl. They would usually just try to comfort you or something, but not Gwen. And he couldn't help but like her even more.