Nico woke up early in the morning, when the sun was rising. Everyone else was still sleeping, which was weird, because someone should be guarding. Nico stood up and walked over to the sleeping form of Annabeth. Slowly reaching down, he tried all Annabeth's pockets, looking for his map. When he finally found it from Annabeth's back pocket, she had woken up. Nico snatched the map quickly from the pocket, putting it in his own. Annabeth turned around and looked at Nico.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?! You… You harassed me!" Annabeth yelled, backing away from Nico. Percy and Grover had woken up when Annabeth had started yelling, and were now looking at the two. "D-did you see?" Annabeth asked, looking at Percy.
"I sure did." Grover said, glaring at Nico.
"N-No, it was nothing like that!" Nico said "I just wanted my map back." he said, taking it from his pocket and showing it to them before pocketing it again.
"Like we would believe you." Annabeth said, standing up.
"I do. Now, should we continue or journey or eat something before?" Percy asked. Annabeth looked like she would want to hit something, probably Nico. Or Percy.
"I suggest we eat now, because it might be harder to find food later." Nico said. "I'm gonna go look for something to eat." he continued, taking his bag and walking out of the cave. He walked over to the river, washing his hands and face before drinking it. Nico walked back towards the forest and went over to a tree that had red fruits and dripped some dark liquid.
Taking out one of his books, he started to look after the fruit. "Here you are. I was afraid you had ran away." someone said. Nico turned around to see Percy. Percy sat down next to Nico, looking up at the dripping fruits. "Can we eat those?" he asked, pointing up at the fruits.
"No." Nico answered, standing up and continuing to look after food. Percy walked beside Nico, pointing at all sorts of fruits and berries, asking if they could be eaten. "Could you shut up?" Nico asked when they reached a big blue tree. The tree had apple-like fruits, but they were violet. Nico scanned the book quickly, finding the violet apple. "These are edible." Nico said.
"Great, but how can we get them?" Percy asked, looking up at the fruits and trying to climb up the tree, which was impossible.
"Fly and take them." Nico said, shooting Percy a glance. Percy huffed and opened his blue butterfly wings. Flapping his wings Percy tried to fly, but managed only to get few feet of the ground before falling back. "Flap harder." Nico said. Percy tried to flap harder, but it didn't do any good.
"I can't." Percy said falling to his knees and breathing heavily. Nico looked down at Percy, letting his eyes soften a bit before he opened his own black wings.
"Watch out." Nico said, starting to flutter his wings. The grass started to wave as Nico was staring to get off the ground. Percy looked in awe as Nico neared the fruits. Although Nico's flying was really unsteady, he reached a branch, where he could land. Nico sat down on the branch, breathing heavily.
"Nico! That was awesome!" Percy yelled. Nico looked down at Percy, still having difficult to breathe, giving a small smile. Taking one of the apples, he tossed it down to Percy. Taking few minutes to calm his breathe, he started to toss more of the apples down, trusting Percy to catch them. Nico reached out for a really juicy looking apple. Stretching his hand further away he could feel the apple under his fingertips. Moving his foot an inch more towards the edge, he could almost get the apple.
"Be careful!" Percy yelled, disturbing Nico. Nico looked down at Percy, losing his balance and falling down. Trying to get air under his wings, Nico tried to fly, but there was no way he could do that. Wrapping his wings tightly against his body, Nico waited the impact with the ground. When he finally hit the ground, his wings ached. Not moving for a moment, Nico waited for the pain to go over.
"Are you okay?" Percy asked, kneeling down next to Nico.
"I didn't get the apple." Nico murmured, opening his eyes. "I'm fine, though my wings hurt." Nico said, sitting up. He looked at one of his wing and noticed that it was lacking feathers. Shit! "Did we get enough apples?" Nico asked, touching the sore wing. He sighed and made them disappear.
"Yeah, let's go back to the others." Percy said. While they were walking back, Nico's bag full of fruits and Percy's arms, Percy decided to ask a question.
"About this morning, were you really touching Annie?" Percy asked, glancing at Nico.
"Yeah." Nico said, looking when Percy's eyes widened in disbelief, before continuing "How would I have gotten my map back?" Nico let a small smirk play on his lips.
"So, you didn't touch her that way?" Percy wanted to confirm.
"No. I don't really find her that attractive." Nico answered. Percy made an 'oh' noise and that was the only sound they made before they reached the cave.
"Did you found something to eat?" Grover asked as soon as Nico and Percy reached the cave. Percy smiled as he laid all the violet apples down on the ground, taking two of them to himself. Percy sat down against the wall of the cave, taking a bite of the juicy fruit. The little fishy cat walked over to Percy, curling up in his lap. The boy offered the apple to the cat, who only licked away the juice before closing its eyes. Percy took another bite of the apple, watching the wall in front of him.
"Where should we go now?" Grover asked after they had all eaten and had sat down in a little circle. Nico took the map from his back pocket and put it in front of everyone, pretty far away from Annabeth.
"I think we should go here." Nico pointed at a big red dot on the map. "That should be another village." he said.
"Why should we go to a village?" Annabeth asked. "I think we should go to these mystery mountains." Annabeth pointed at the mountains on the map.
"It would be wiser to go to the village and ask if they knew anything about the lost Oracle." Nico stated, looking at Annabeth, his eyes cold as ice.
"That was actually a good idea." Grover said, nodding to himself.
"Fine." Annabeth sighed. "I guess we should go there then." she gave a small smile. They exited the cave, Percy binning farewell to the little cat. After they had walked about an hour in silence, it was nicely broken by a meow. All of them turned around to look at the little fishy-cat.
"I think we just gained a new member to our quest." Percy smiled, bending down and taking the cat to his lap. They continued to walk, listening to Percy's cooing voice and watching as the scenery changed. The trees changed to bushes, the bushes changing to grass when they reached a big field. They camped one day there before continuing their way towards the unknown village. They didn't have many apples left, but that didn't matter because they found new food on the way.
It was the third day of their trip to the village. It was hot and they had absolutely nothing that could protect them from the blazing sun.
"It's hot." Grover whined, sitting down on the green grass.
"There should be a forest right behind that hill." Nico said, pointing at the little hill in front of them. Annabeth walked over to the hill and indeed, there it was, the forest. Percy walked over to Annabeth, putting an arm around her shoulder.
He looked down from the hill at Nico and Grover before turning towards Annabeth. "You know, I think this quest has been good for us." Percy said.
"Why do you think that?" Annabeth asked.
"We have learnt a lot of new things. About us, about Grover and Nico, about new food and everything." Percy smiled.
"You think that?" she smiled back. Percy nodded and looked at Annabeth. Slowly, he moved closer pressing his lips on Annabeth's. The kiss was sweet as long as it took. They parted when they heard some kind of weird noise. They looked down from the hill to where Nico and Grover was, who had also noticed the weird voice. They looked past the two boys and saw a huge smoke cloud forming after some kind of bronze thing. The bronze thing was getting closer with a fast pace, and it looked angry.
"Run!" Grover yelled grabbing Nico's bag from the ground, Nico running after him. Nico took the cat from the ground and continued to run with Grover towards Annabeth and Percy. When they caught up with Percy, they all started to run towards the forest, the bronze thing could be now clearly seen as it was getting closer by seconds, but no one wanted to look back at it. They had only about 100 meter to the forest, when Annabeth fell down. Nico stopped, grabbed Annabeth's hand to help her up, but Annabeth pulled Nico down, getting up on the same.
Percy looked back, noticing Nico on the ground. He turned around starting to run towards the fallen boy, but was stopped by Annabeth who pulled his hand. Percy's eyes met Nico's for a moment, Nico's eyes telling him to run away. Percy mouthed something, but Nico didn't see it.
Nico stood up, trying to run away from the bronze thing, but it was already too late. The bronze thing ran straight into Nico, knocking him over again. There was no sign of Annabeth, Percy or Grover. Nico tried to hold his eyes open and could see that the thing that had ran into him was a dragon. His sight started to blur and he could feel himself losing his consciousness. The dragon had stopped immediately when it had hit Nico and was breathing heavily beside him.
"Holy shit! 'Tavy, I think I hit something." Was the last thing Nico heard before his mind went blank.
A/N
It may be that the next chapter comes next year, depending if I get it ready in a week.
Can someone guess who or what had ran into Nico?
Also, Am I the only one who think that Leo reminds MIKA (the singer)?
Please review!
