DISCLAIMER: Guess who decided it was funny to tweet "Just killed of Thalia and Nico."
Rick Riordan.
REVIEW RESPONSES:
Emoxkitten – Nyx: Yay I was hoping you'd enjoy it. Can't kill off both the hot guys, right? And as far as Kronos goes… Well, the one-shot is underway. Something tells me you'll like it quite a bit.
oOo
Overkill.
Whatever meager content we had managed to scrape off that miserable day was turned into ashes, ashes. The small funeral we held for Orpheus was far too sobering.
Nico insisted that it be done right, no matter what, no matter what he'd done in life. Nobody receives special treatment in death beyond the results of Judgment. Personal grudges did not change obligations. Respect was crucial.
After all, he'd said, we were to spend more time with the dead than this earth.
A small pyre of sticks and braches worked. Nobody here really fought with a shield, so his trip to the wooden deathbed was a little unorthodox, but Nico assured us that it was fine. The traditions were not insensible.
The fires had burned brighter than the sun. The heat was meager but still uncomfortable after my earlier spell, the glare exhausting on my eyes, and the smoke painful to my lungs. To this day I have no words for the smell.
We had nothing to do but stare at watch solemnly. Hunter looked near collapse, even after Brook had bandaged the worst of her wounds. Shay was too tired to lift a cup of water via magic if she'd tried. Little wide-eyed Brook was standing in that rigid way that said she couldn't trust her head to stay up properly. Beside me, Nico stood, the flames reflecting back at me from his dark eyes. More things flashed there, unreadable; yet to my utter shock, I found that I knew what they were, anyway.
His sister.
The fear came back again. The worry that I was still hurting him. The relief at having him alive and not angry with me seemed like a sick joke now. Why did it take the realization of agony to bring reconciliation between us?
Irony. It still stalked us.
Yet questions had to wait. The flames and smoke smothered every word, every sound save the wood popping, while they burned. Bright orange and dark, deep shadows were thrown across our apathetic faces in a strange and frightening way.
Too much had happened that day.
We stayed until the fire had burned itself out. Brook had secured an ingenious safe place for it to burn with rocks and the flame-resistant monster dust; the lush, soft green grass remained unstained. The clearing would not burn. So there we stood and watched.
Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.
The wind was groaning in the trees, tugging half-heartedly on their tops. Its mourning cries were the last sound.
Moon stepped forward then, one gentle nose thrust into the smoldering soot. She snorted and sent a cloud of it flying. Then she threw back her head and howled.
From behind us, her pack echoed the sound.
"Death of wolf new be worst," she murmured. "Care not who."
I dimly wondered if we'd won Orpheus anything in the end. What would become of him, this second time around? Was he himself again in death? Or had whatever soul he'd once had been tainted by madness for all eternity? Something told me Nico knew the answer, but yet again, the questions did not come.
As time went on, I became more and more convinced that some questions were not meant to be asked.
Yet they burned like the fire had inside me. They burned whatever meager things I had left; amazing how long they made it last. I felt that I'd been crafted of ashes, ashes.
"We need rest," Brook said, staring at the blackened circle.
Hunter sighed heavily. "We can't. If we fall asleep here, we'll grow lazy and sleep for hours and hours. And I don't want to be caught vulnerable and wounded when that drakon comes back."
The drakon. I recalled the silhouette riding atop it and the cold, prophetic voice that'd whispered around in my head and shuddered.
Something told me that this battle was far from won.
oOo
I don't ask for much,
But truth be told I'd settle for a life less frightening,
A life less frightening…
"We should've sung a song for him," I said, laughing weakly at the end. Of course I'd figure out what to do hours after it was far too late.
Night had fallen over our journey home. The blanket of a deep blue sky peeked down at us from the overhead shelter of bony wooden branches. The wide array of stars stared at us coldly.
Well. At least they were there.
Nico, responding to my statement, shrugged. "Well, if you ask Moon, she'll talk your ear off for hours about the Song of the Wolf. That's what she calls that racket she made back there. Technically, we did give him a melody after all."
"I could've brought my violin," I mused. "It'd have been a nice touch."
"That's ridiculous," he said, rolling his eyes.
The thin layer of meager idle conversation did not last long. We lapsed back into silence. The kind that would've been comfortable, had I been able to calm my buzzing thoughts.
But I couldn't. He still stood so close to me, like he was a child scared to wander far from his mother while crossing a busy street. And the questions still burned in my head.
Since my iPod was my only comfort that didn't seem to be harmed by my presence, I turned it up.
We were asleep on our feet, still trudging through the woods, still slowly finding our way back. Perhaps it was a good thing Nico and I traveled so close together; now and then, one of us would sway, and the other would help them along until the spell had passed. Hunter was still reluctant to call break. Now and then we were forced to stop and lean on the trees for ten minutes, but she always ensured that we move on again.
Move on. One foot in front of the other. Leaving the ashes behind.
I'd have turned to stare behind us, as if that clearing and cliff were still visible, but the things that Orpheus had said chilled me to the core. It was a madman's mumblings, but even so.
Don't look back. Never look back.
"Look."
I jumped, staring at Nico in bewilderment. "What?"
He pointed up at the branches. "Look. Through the trees. See that cluster of stars over there?"
I squinted. "Uh… yeah."
"Guess who."
"Laelaps? The fox?"
"Yep."
An uneasily silence fell again.
I turned off the iPod and sheathed it beside Întuneric. Better get this over with. Before we hurt one another again.
"Should I, uh, not stand so close, or…?"
He stared straight ahead and stopped, holding a hand on my shoulder. The others passed us with curious glances but kept going. We didn't walk again until they were out of earshot.
I sighed and looked at the cold, short, blunt winter grass. "I'm sorry. It wasn't my fault, and it's not yours, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry it has to be like this."
"That's a lie. It was my fault. I knew the moment I saw you that it was going to affect things between us; I knew there would be complications when we became friendly; I knew it'd be worse when we had to live together in the funeral home. It wasn't fair to leave you in the dark like that."
"In the dark. Hah. That's the only reason you hated me? Because I'm… I'm not her?"
"Absolutely not. First I hated you because you were picking through my head in my sleep. Admittedly, it's been done before, but since then I've managed to get a tight lock on my mind. My only dreams were supposed to be my own, not someone reaching out for me. Later I hated you because you were annoying. Maybe a little bit because you were clueless, too, though I knew that was my fault. And I definitely resented it. You and her… It's uncanny, how much you look alike."
I was quiet.
"If my 'hated' you meant 'fought with', then there are also other reasons. One being myself and no one else. Not her. Not you. Me."
"The sword," I remembered. "The summoning spell. Resurrecting Ethan."
"Right. …I… I didn't want to break you. But I had to teach you effectively, right? There are hardly any limits to what we can do, physically; I could raise Tartarus if I wanted to, quite literally. I could bring her back. I could kidnap people from the dead much easier than Gaea. But if we went around doing that, we'd just recreate the second World War. Forgetting our morals was what started that conflict."
I couldn't look at him. "…Morals?"
"Morals. Some argue that the Fates play games to that while it's physically possible to do a few things, they will always prevent them from happening. And it boils down to morals. Our kind… When you deal with death and dance between what one might call Heaven and Hell, you have to set rules for yourself. You learn what's right and what's wrong. You were lucky. You had me here to teach you what I could. Even if I failed to present that moral side strongly, you still had me. Me? I had no one. I would've done it. I'd have ripped her back into this world whether she wanted life again or not. If there's one upside to Minos's scandal, then it would be the fact that I had him and his planned resurrection to think about when considering Bianca."
The name strangled him. He cut off and stayed silent.
"But you learned," I sighed.
"But I learned," he agreed. "I figured it out eventually. It was a painful thing. But most knowledge is. That's what was so annoying about you. I had lived through the hard stuff for you; all you had to do was listen, but no, you had to go and do things your own way. Recreate all this conflict. Nor was it a nice thing for me to relive, either."
My mind flashed back on his reluctance to divulge the summoning spell, even after he had left Hades's orders behind. On his insistence to read my sword's memories.
"But it doesn't matter now," he sighed. "I know better than to hide things. And those boundaries are something you'll have to learn fast. Honestly I'm just glad you haven't gone and tried anything funny with Ethan yet."
"Then teach me," I said, stopping. He paused to glance at me. "Right now. Explain it. Tell me why. Tell me what's so wrong about it. I don't think it's so horrible or me to miss him like this."
"It's not," he smiled sadly. "That's not what I meant."
"Then wha-"
"Later," he said, shaking his head. "I'll explain later. I'll teach it later. The right way. No more secrets. Okay? It's the only way you'll fully understand."
This wasn't fair. Him holding information over my head. Holding Ethan over my head.
But I merely nodded and began walking again.
"So…" I said after a while. The others were still ahead. "…After you've taught me, you won't come back to Oswego, then?"
"No. I'm never going to that frozen hellhole again. You are coming to LA to train," he said, rolling his eyes. "Besides, we can continue to work on the Underworld's case here."
"Okay. And after that's done?"
He fell silent. "…Did you imagine never coming back?"
"I don't know. It doesn't seem fair."
"Life isn't fair," he sneered. "Get over it."
"I mean Bianca."
The name made him flinch. "…Oh."
"Yeah. So you don't want any more to do with me, then? I understand if you don't."
"Sis…" He sighed and put his head in his hands. "…No. No, don't. I know what the logical solution is, but no, I can't do that."
I didn't speak.
"You're going to be the death of me," he swore, a mirthless laugh not unlike Orpheus's chuckle coming from him. "But no. You've done something that can't be undone."
"You talk like I've damned you. Or made you a slave. Or plan on eating you."
"This is why Father didn't want me to train with you. He knew something would happen. He didn't want me to acknowledge that I have a sister, because the last time it ended in tragedy and me living alone in the Labyrinth for six months and nearly committing unforgivable crimes. And because I'd inevitably… You'd inevitably matter."
I looked away. "Yeah. Great spot that put you in. So it'd be better if I left? So I don't matter anymore? So you can run off free as a bird, unbound? Just that much less you have to lose?"
I didn't see his hand come up. It slammed into my wounded shoulder and pinned me to a tree. The pain shot through my chest like a hot knife. A startled cry ran past my lips.
Scalding black eyes pinned me there against the trunk. "I lost," he spat, "everything. I don't intend to lose it again, no matter by what means that would be. Nor the means it'd take. Especially since it doesn't hurt nears as much as it heals."
Silence.
"Don't you ever think," he growled, tightening his grip, "that I regret it."
And there he went again. Hm, I'm upset. What should I do? Oh! I know! I'll just unlock the secrets to life! Great use of the three spare seconds I have there. Very fruitful.
His gaze slid from mine slowly and landed on my shoulder. Abruptly, he yanked back and gripped the offending hand to his chest. "Oh, gods. I'm sorry. I – I wasn't thinking-"
"It's alright," I said, waving him off. "You got your point across."
Something in that was funny to him. He laughed that borderline insane laugh and marched on. I kept up.
The moon kept watch overhead.
"…So you really don't mind?" I asked. Did I dare hope?"
He sighed. "I thought I got my point across."
"Right. Sorry."
That small smile – it only showed up this often when he was tired, I knew – adorned his face again as he laced an arm around my waist. "Don't be. I… I never thought I'd feel like this again."
I found myself smiling, too.
"Not that it's exactly the same. It's very different, actually. You two are quite opposites at some things. And for some reason you make me feel like the older one. But it still feels nice."
"You used to call her Sis, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't. She was still 'Sissy'. I planned to drop the childish y and surprise her with how grown-up I was when she came back from the quest, but…" He shrugged. "Well. Percy came back with the news in his eyes. And I suspected. The nightmares were enough to worry Connor and Travis. I never got to associate her with that name much. It's yours until I die and meet her again." He smirked. "Assuming she'll wait for me. But in those last few days I learned that contrary to what I'd believed, she's rather impatient. It's one of the things you have in common."
We fell into silence again. This was did not hum and buzz with unvoiced thoughts and haunting questions; rather, it was just comfort. The silent acknowledge and advantage of one another's presence and nothing else. The trees stood silent vigil around and the stars continued to glare coldly down on us, keeping their aloof watch as if they'd never been in jeopardy in the first place.
The night chaperoned the rest of our trip.
oOo
We caught up with the others as we entered the city. The stars had been drowned in yellow again; the idea set a horrible aching in my chest.
I steeled myself against it and pressed closer to Nico.
Down the streets we walked, quiet among the buildings. Moon sent Night ahead to scout for any enemies lurking back at the funeral home. My eyes anxiously skimmed the gleaming towers for signs of the drakon as it'd appeared nights before, but to much relief, there was no sign of it.
We stumbled into the house and nearly passed out on the floor like we had after the first night we'd met Dr. Thorn at the Halloween fundraiser. But it had been nearly twenty-four hours since we'd eaten this time around, not just slept; food came first. Hunger is a gnawing and horrible pain I had yet to master.
We were munching on Demeter's favorite when Brook spoke.
"Where's Night? He never came back," she said, sending a sideways glance at Moon. "And why are your thoughts hidden again?"
Nico and I exchanged a glance and looked away real fast.
Moon wore the slightly shocked expression of one who's forgotten something important. "Oh… Hold here, pleases. Check I will." Off she went, trotting just a little too quickly into the living room and up the stairs.
Shay looked up at us. "So… What's next?"
"Sleep," Hunter said.
"No, I mean after that."
"Sleep," she said eagerly.
Shay sighed. "Look… I don't think I can stay with you. This was fun and all, but what good is Hunter's freedom and my own chance if I don't use it? I have to find out if there are others. We have an obligation to live now, us Titan kids. Isn't that amazing?"
She was balking in giddy shock that she had a right to live. The thought disgusted me.
"Yes," I said. "You know what? That is pretty amazing."
She nodded. "Right. So I'm gonna pack my bags and go searching for others. In all cities and states. Besides, I can't just wait for The Patron to fulfill her promise of using me. I have to do something. And preferably before the incident with Iapetus's kid repeats."
"Preferably," Nico agreed. "You know where we are if you need help."
"Come to us first," Brook approved. "Don't worry about finding Camp. Rejects got to stick together."
Shay nodded. "Alright. I'll keep that in mind."
From upstairs, Moon began to howl.
She came bolting down the stairs in a tumble of silver fur and flailing paws. Down, down, down, crashing painfully along the last four steps. She sprang to her jittery feet unharmed. "Mistress! Mistress!"
Brook leapt out of her chair. "What?! What's wrong?!"
Moon gave that wide, fanged smile. "Nothing! Come see!"
No sooner had she spoken did a great crash come from the second floor.
Brook glanced at the ceiling, then at her mischievous companion. "…Alright…" She began to walk rigidly for the stairs.
Nico put a warning hand on her shoulder. "You might want to grab some glue solvent before you go up."
She rolled her eyes at him and shoved off, marching up the stairs. Moon trotted and barked eagerly ahead of her.
"Glue solvent?" Shay asked. I shrugged.
"OH, MY GODS! WHAT DID YOU GUYS DO?!" Brook screamed from upstairs.
Hunter chuckled and got to her feet. "This sounds promising."
We followed behind her, single-file up the stairs. We fanned out along the hallway up top.
The wall – or door, as Moon had called it – that the pack had tried to reconstruct was in pieces again. Lumps of bulky, sticky wood and plaster were strewn everywhere. The dust was still hanging in the air in a way that made me gag. Moon was sitting amid the mess and beaming proudly.
"Pack fix door!" she barked.
"I see that," Hunter mused.
To my astonishment, one of the larger piles of rubble began to move. A soft whimper came from beneath.
"Night?!" Brook cried, kneeling down beside him. "You're a mess! Moon, what happened?"
"Fix door fall," Moon explained, panting.
Night whimpered and laid down. When he stayed still, there was no recognizing the shape of a living thing beneath that layer of wood and plaster chunks. He looked like an odd, magically-constructed man-made creature.
Brook sighed and sat down, glaring at him. "How did this all get glued into your fur?"
"Fall did door when Moon came to find Mistress," Moon explained. "Night catch. Door weak. All over Night."
"No kidding," Brook muttered, grabbing a piece of wood fixed to his head. She leaned back and pulled. The wolf grunted and strained the other way.
"Pack fix again?" Moon suggested.
Night shrieked as Brook lost her grip and fell, disgruntled, to the dust-infused carpet. The wooden wolf went sprawling backwards into the wall, crashing into it so hard that a new gaping hole opened up.
Brook gaped at the mess.
Hunter chuckled. "I'd take that as a no."
oOo
Nyx: Hehe. I lied.
Nic: Oh, geez.
Nyx: This was what I was missing! I got it all back last night! No writers block, no moping, no nothing! A muse has STRUCK!
Nic: I'm guessing Morpheus didn't?
Nyx: No, I stayed up past three in the morning. This might be why my sleep schedule is off… But I love this….
Nic: Clearly. The last time you stayed up was to read Shakespeare.
Nyx: Et tu, Nic, Et tu?!
Nic: Oh, geez.
Nyx: Anyway. The epilogue is all that's left, and it is done. Save the last line. I am very picky here. It must be epic. You will hate me for it, but it will be great. Just give me some time to think, and it'll be up! *beams* Book Two, already down. I like the pace this is moving at. Even if it gets ahead of me now and then. Don't worry; if I chose to move to two chapters a week, you'll be notified.
Nic: Good to know.
Nyx: Please review, guys! I know this wasn't exactly Rebels, but it's got some nice things in there. Especially at the end. And I'm always, always open to criticism. Thanks for those who have been reviewing!
You'll learn more about what's to come when the epilogue is up. Until then, guys!
