How better to describe Nico?

Chapter 2: Child of Tragedy

Demigod dreams suck.

During times of war or conflict, or while on an important quest, the dreams of a demigod can foretell of things to come, or help a hero understand vital information. But when Gaea is finally dissipated, and the world saved?

Things get a little more... Personal.

Nico di Angelo was running. Surrounded by darkness, vaulting over and dodging around fragments of stone ruins as they loomed from the shadows. His quarry wasn't fast- whatever he was chasing was injured, and left an occasional spot of blood in its wake. But the son of Hades was not making much headway. He could feel his body trying to fade into shadow, becoming darkness permanently, and killing him. He was exhausted, his willpower all that was keeping him alive.

Nico ran on, caught up in desperation. He could here the labored breath, now. The limping footsteps, the gasps of pain. He was so close, he could almost see his target. He spun around a freestanding column of marble, and the darkness ahead fell back just enough that he could see her.

Nico let out a gasp. Her armor was practically falling off, her t-shirt and jeans ripped and bloody. She had an arrow in her leg, long and black with a red feathered shaft: the trademark of that dirtbag Orion. Her sword was clenched so hard in her hand that her knuckles were white. She turned and saw him standing there. There was a line of blood across her forehead, left by Bryce Lawrence's javelin. She had a look of utmost terror on her face.

"Reyna!"

She let out a pained cry and turned to run on. Nico watched in horror as her leg gave way and she collapsed against a pile of weathered stone. He rushed to her side. "Reyna, let me help. We have to get this arrow out..."

He reached forward to grasp her leg, but she jerked away, as if his touch burned. She turned to look at him and let out a desperate scream.

"Stay away from me!"

Nico woke with a start, clutching the covers of his bunk and sitting up fast. He was sweating, and breathing hard. The nearby window, though open, let in no light of morn. The sun had not yet risen. He worked to calm his breath, trying to think of something to comfort him, some memory, some...

And then he remembered what he had been dreaming of.

He fell backwards onto his pillow. Someone had decided that all of the bedclothes in the Hades cabin should be blood-red. The pillow case, the sheets, the covers, everything. Nico had been put out by the color choice at first, but he'd grown used to it over time. But having a dream about his friend bleeding from multiple wounds, and then waking up to this...

Nico needed some air.

He got out of bed and pulled off the black tank top and basketball shorts that served as pjs. He started dressing for the day, looking across the room at Hazel's empty bunk. A sad smile played across his face. During his sister's frequent visits to Camp Half-Blood, Hazel had often teased Nico about only owning black clothes when he lived at a summer camp. She had begun to buy him clothes from the stores in New Rome before traveling to Long Island Sound. He opened the trunk under his bed and touched the purple cloth, before pulling on a pair of khaki shorts and a purple t-shirt. Emblazoned on the front of the shirt was a golden laurel crown, and on the back, a set of letters. SPQR. He studied himself in the mirror on the wall. Running a pale hand through his ebony hair, he laughed. "Well, Hazel," he said to himself, "how do I look?"

~~~~~}&{~~~~~

There's something incredible about near a hundred teenage warriors and heroes waking up and bringing life to a previously silent world. As Nico walked through camp, he heard the pounding of the forge, the clashing noise of the arena, the voices upon voices, and there was something... comforting, in the sound. He felt as though he were part of something bigger, rather than an outsider looking in. He was no longer ignored, but recognized.

Cecil from Hermes cabin was almost decapitated because he paused in a knife duel long enough to wave and call hello. Pollux and Butch whooped him a war-cry as they soared overhead on pegasi. Malcolm, Katie Gardener, and Jake Mason all looked up from a training exercise diagram long enough to yell his name. Drew Tanaka looked at him like he was roadkill, and Connor Stoll, perched on the roof of Cabin 10, winked at him and gave a two-fingered salute before dropping a wriggling green lizard on her head. As Drew's shrieks faded in the distance, Nico thought, chuckling to himself, that he truly belonged to a family. An imperfect one, maybe, but what family was perfect?

The morning sun warmed the grass as the smell of lunch began to waft from the kitchens. Nico's stomach made a rather undignified sound. He was tired. He had spent the first few hours before the rise of the sun on the obstacle course, and then the remainder of his time sparring with Jason. His swordplay was getting better, or so the son of Jupiter told him. Although, that really wasn't how Nico had felt when he'd been kicked to the dust for the fifth or sixth time that morning. Jason kept saying some junk about how ridiculously high Nico's reaction time was getting, but he didn't feel all that comforted. What was more, he had hoped that Jason would beat the memory of his dream painfully out of his head. But the dream was still there. It still hurt.

With a sigh, he started to make his way over to the archery range, to deal with some more personal demons.

~~~~~}&{~~~~~

Since 6:30 AM. That's how long Will Solace had been practicing. And it was almost lunchtime. And he still hadn't managed to hit the bulls-eye twenty times out of twenty. To an ordinary archer, it would seem that Will was striving for the impossible. But considering that the target wasn't even moving or shooting back, that was pretty dismal for a son of the archer god.

Will wearily readied his bow again. Archery came naturally to most of the children of Apollo, but Will was... special. What talent he had, he had worked for. He was better than some of the other campers, but compared to his siblings, Will was downright terrible. He practiced whenever he could, despite the embarrassment he felt. He hoped his efforts would not go unnoticed by his father.

Near-noon heat warmed the back of Will's neck as he prepared to shoot. He had just gone out and pulled all the arrows off of his now clear target. He would empty his quiver once more, and then head for lunch. The mere thought of deep-dish pepperoni made him weak, but it'd have to wait.

A deep breath. The fingers splayed, with an arrow between each pair. The shot. Three arrows at once. All three slammed into the target. Good news, but the shot had felt... odd. Considering Will Solace's hit average, he should not have worried about shooting more than one arrow at a time, but this was how Will let out his frustration. Three more arrows went to the bowstring. Drawn taut, the cord between his fingers creaking the wood of the recurve. The release. The blinding speed. The sound of three solid impacts.

There it was again! Something was off about the shot. Was was that feeling?

Will's lithe frame went into a contemplative posture as he studied the target. Six arrows, but the placement... It didn't look like Will was the one shooting. Experimentally, he drew again. Three arrows, a sharp release, and sure enough, the feeling that someone else was aiming for him. Will looked at where each shaft had hit the target. It almost looked like...

Will shot again and again and again, three at once, two at once, then one at a time in blinding succession. Each time, the heavy thwck of an impact. He shot until his arms ached and his quiver was empty. He bent over, hands on his knees and breathing heavy. Glancing up to survey his target, he stood straight up in indignation.

He had hardly aimed beyond pointing at the target, and yet somehow, every one of his arrows was forming a larger pattern on the round surface. Two small circles for eyes, and a long curve of a smile. What the Zeus was...

Two slender hands wrapped around him from behind to cover his eyes. A soft voice laughed. "Guess who?"

Will sighed in exasperation, then all at once dropped his bow and whirled around. There was no escape for Lou Ellen as Will grabbed her tight. She let out a piercing laugh as he tickled her sides. "Lu, does you mother know you use your magic to interrupt poor, defenseless archers who are trying to practice?"

Lou Ellen gasped for breath, struggling just slightly under Will's hold. "I think mom approves when I use magic on my boyfriend."

"Your mom's not all that responsible, is she?"

"Nope."

"So that's where you get it from."

She turned around in Will's arms so she could grab the front of his white tee. Her face leaned in close to his. "Well, it's not very responsible of you to tickl- AAAHAHASTOP!"

Will released her after another minute of torture, bending to pick up his bow as she punched him repeatedly in the arm, to little effect. She finally gave up, blowing a strand of long, light brown hair from her face. "You're insufferable."

"And you're a dork."

"The dork you kiss whenever you're alone with her?"

"Eh, touche."

Lou Ellen looked fondly at her handy-work. "Do you need to take that down before lunch?"

Walking to stand beside the sorceress, Will smiled at the smiley face. "Nah, let someone else admire it. Hungry?"

They turned to start walking to the pavilion. She grabbed his hand. "When am I not hungry?"

"That's an odd question, as you seem perpetually thinner than me, and you're dating the skinniest prawn that ever passed for a demigod."

Lou Ellen poked Will in the stomach. "Oh, stop, you're plenty strong. Besides, you don't need to worry about fighting. Some of the strongest fighters in camp would be six feet underground if you hadn't patched them up."

"That's maybe the first time anyone's ever managed to make my job seem manly."

"Didn't Chiron give you lecture on how important being a healer was?"

"Yeah, I wasn't really buying it."

As they drew closer to the dining pavilion, the lines around the serving table slightly alarmed Lou Ellen. "Well, if you wanna bulk up, Doc, you'd better hurry. The line's kinda long and Holy Hecate I am STARVING."

It seemed to take an eternity, but teenagers have long been known to endure hellish trials in order to obtain baked greasy flatbread with melted cheese and spiced meat atop. After scraping part of their precious meal in the fire to thank the gods for not killing them all, (with Lou Ellen adding, "and thank you for Chiron please never take him away he's the best ever!) the two of them were able to park their rears on the heavenly luxury of an aluminum picnic table's bench.

The upside was, they got to sit together. As Percy, Nico, Pollux, Jason (who wasn't always around but he was still a bro), and a few others would have had to sit alone all the time if seating went by godly parent, Chiron had changed the rule a while ago, so that anyone could sit wherever at meals. Further reasoning for this rule-change was that twenty picnic tables really wouldn't have fit in the pavilion.

Will looked into the bottom of his empty chalice and muttered "Coke with vanilla," and the cup was instantly filled and bubbling. Lou Ellen's cup was psychedelic to look at, as she couldn't decide. "Um, Cherry Pepsi. No, Monster. Wait, no, Chiron says that's bad for you, uhhh... Just water? No that's so boring. Ugh, Gorgon's Blood- WHOA NO STOP it's an expression! I didn't know it could actually do that! Oh, suck it, just give me pomegranate juice." The cup came to rest on the dark, crimson hue, ending the light-show.

Will spoke around a mouthful of pizza. "Isn't that a little high in sugar for someone so hyperacti-"

"NO, not after all that, not second-guessing my choice."

Chuckling to himself, Will looked around. Sometimes Cecil would join them for lunch, but he was over there with Nyssa and Mark, and that wasn't the prob. Will stood on the bench with his knees, looking around over the heads of the chewing, chattering crowd. Nowhere to be seen...

"What'cha lookin' for, Will?"

Will sat down heavily. "It's a who. I can't see Nico anywhere. Sometimes he'll go sit by himself rather than sit with us, but he's always here. Why would he miss lunch?"

Lou Ellen didn't answer, but she had a sinking feeling that it was about time she talked with Will.

Suddenly, the pomegranate juice tasted a little bitter.