Prologue - Meeting, Greeting, and Mythomagic

Nico stumbled into her favorite graveyard with a crushing headache. Shuffling around, she tried to get her bearings. Once she had a general idea of where exactly she was she could locate that pine tree that always seemed to calm her down. It took her all of fifteen minutes to get situated. She just had to get away from all those people, those demigods. It seemed stupid in retrospect, but it felt like everybody was just... watching her. That they were judging her, waiting for her to do something stupid or weird or just abnormal.

She didn't exactly want to be liked (at least not after that talk with her father), because then she would have to talk to people, and that was just something she was not very good at. At all.

She was always the kid who stood at the corner of the playground organizing her Mythomagic cards. Speaking of Mythomagic…

Grinning, the Ghost Queen pulled out an impressive deck of said cards, each labeled with a Greek god or monster. Even after so many years of playing, Nico was all around awful. She knew how to spot the packs with the best cards, she understood the myths. Hell, she was even good at the video game! But the second she tried for a card battle she was dead. Really though, how were you supposed to keep track of who had played what? She'd always treated them more as a collectors item than anything; they were just as organized as the figurines on her desk.

She was about to begin reorganizing (again) when a strangely familiar voice said, "What are you doing out of the Underworld?"

Now being the scrawny(although in reality had a pretty dang hot waist, curves and rack), antisocial, hot-tempered daughter of Hades, Nico had heard some nasty insults. But that was just plain rude. "Excuse me?" She asked, before really looking at her company. He was a death god, Nico realized immediately, but certainly not one she recognized. The mystery god looked and acted young, much younger than any Greek god would normally appear, Nico got the feeling this guy was yesterday's news even before Kronos was born. "Do I-? Who are you?" That sounded mildly respectful, right?

"I am Anubis, god of funerals, as you should well know- you're not dead," he realized halfway through his sentence. The vermilion tinge quickly spreading from his neck to his cheeks said he was sorry (humiliated) for his mistake.

"What? I'm not? Thank you for telling me, I could've never figured that out on my own." Nico slumped back against the tree, now in a significantly worse mood than she was in before the Egyptian (she guessed) god acknowledged her.

"I apologize. But you should know you smell very heavily of death. Did you recently have an almost death experience? Related in anyway? Or- are you another death god? I cannot begin to apologize for not recognizing you." Nico rolled her eyes at how stupidly this supposedly all-powerful being was rambling at the thought of forgetting a lesser god. Then again, she'd seen Greek gods do pretty stupid things as well. She was snapped out of her thoughts when Anubis interrupted himself, "Wait- are you even an Egyptian?"

"Daughter of Hades," she mumbled sticking out her hand, "Nicoletta di Angelo."

"A Greek. Your gods don't usually let us run into each other," Anubis said, amused. "Seems a little strange to me. Is it not?"

"They have good reasons for themselves." Nico replied, not quite paying attention. When she realized how stupid that statement sounded to someone who wasn't up to her neck in Greek-Roman celestial politics she face-palmed and commanded, "Forget I said that." The Mythomagic deck was back in her hands before Anubis could argue.

"You play Mythomagic?" Anubis seemed really excited about this revelation. Astonishingly so.

"Uh-huh." Nico was rightfully put off from his bursting enthusiasm. "Well, the video game; I just collect the cards for the most of it." After a second she muttered darkly, "I couldn't figure out how you're supposed to use them."

"Would you perhaps. . . want me to teach you?" Anubis's eyes looked like they belonged to the puppy he was.

It's not like I have anything better to do, Nico thought to herself. "Sure, why not?"