Just Be Friends

Chapter Five

Nico II

He found her by Zephyrus' Creek, legs submerged in the icy water. Nico assumed that it was her daughter of Poseidon thing that rendered her immune to hypothermia when she was in such cold waters because if it'd been him, he would've lost his legs to frozen chunks of ice.

Nico hovered at the edge of the shadows, where the bare trees still managed to cast some form of protection from the distant, lazy sun. Unsure about approaching the girl but yearning to all the same. The male demigod bought time by admiring her from sight angle: the inky dark of her hair like liquid down her back, the darkness emphasizing the bright of her eyes.

But unlike the daughter of Zeus, this girl didn't seem that suited for winter.

Nico shifted and his foot accidentally crunched a pebble. Her demigod instincts must be rearing because Persis whirled around, the water forming a fist that brandished in his direction. Her eyes practically glowed in the sheer paleness of the scenery.

"Oh, you." The water crashed into the river, tranquil once more. "Did you need something?"

"I was, uh—the Stoll brothers sent me here," he mumbled.

"What about?"

"Set traps, examine the battleground," he responded, somewhat shyly. He wasn't used to talking to girls aside from his sister.

"Isn't that cheating?" Persis made it sound rhetorical.

He answered anyway, "They're children of Hermes."

Persis turned her cheek in his direction, smiling faintly. "Yeah. So what're the results?"

Nico laughed quietly. "I'm a newbie," said the boy, "I know next to nothing—I think they just want me out of their way. So I decided to take a walk and I find you here. D'you come here often?"

"Bad memories," said Persis, touching her palm. Nico glimpsed a stretch of skin that was scarred. "A scorpion from the pit of Tartarus attacked me. My friend Luke set it on me. Asshole," she added under her breath.

Nico had heard snatches of the traitorous son of Hermes, Luke Castellan. Something unpleasant in him swelled. He didn't do well with betrayals. And the expression on Persis' face when she talked about him— "Were you in love with him?"

Persis shot him a dark look. "Don't talk rubbish, kid."

Indignation snarled in his chest. "I'm not a kid! I'm twelve," he defended, losing confidence at the end of his short outburst.

"I remember being twelve. I was sent on a quest for Zeus' Master Bolt and it matured me. I guess I've never noticed how childish other twelve-year-olds could be." Persis' gaze was more challenging than condescending: the former wasn't that much better from the latter.

Oh, now that was so on. Nico's eyes narrowed irately on the older girl. "You'll eat your words."

Persis smirked. "I'll like to see you try."

Coming in here and picking a fight was not what he had expected to find. But he did not back down from a challenge. Never. "Keep your eyes peeled," he warned her and stomped off. It wasn't until he was out of the forest before he realized that he had no idea how to impress the daughter of Poseidon.

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xXx

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Ultimately, he decided to start from the night's game of Capture-the-Flag.

It was not much of a good start. He, with no prior training, was set on guard duty: which was a nice way of telling him to stay out of the action. What he absolutely could stand—what spurned his ire—was the daughter of Poseidon standing guard there.

Initially, Persis had insisted on being on the offensive. But after realizing she could watch Nico's embarrassment brew, she had decided to wallow in complacent smugness—and as their flag's last line of defense.

Nico prowled the riverside, frowning in thought, trying to think of a plan. Persis wasn't fully focused on him. A son of Apollo had approached her about strategies and she was paying the boy more attention than she did him. Again, Nico tried to quell his annoyance. The less people watching him screw up, the better.

A rustle, a streak of silver as arrow cut through air stopped him in his tracks. Nico's body reacted instinctively to danger: he lurched aside and the silver projectile impacted against the water.

"Nico, get down!" hollered Persis as the son of Apollo returned fire and she raised a wall of cold, cold water. The chaos that began as the Huntress of Artemis melted out of the woods and assaulted them gave him the best cover to take action, seize glory.

His sword was a heavy weight in his hand; the Huntresses were agiler and stronger, more experienced.

So how?

As if on cue, a shadow lapped into the edge of his vision. He stared, shocked that the shadow had actually curled invitingly around the ankle of a Huntress: there was the oddest tugging sensation in his gut and as he forced himself to relax, the knot tightened: the shadow tugged and, shrieking, the girl was lifted and flung away.

That distracted some of the Huntresses, allaying the assault on Persis and her subordinates (no, he was not her subordinate regardless of what Thalia dictated).

Arrows shrilled across the wintery wind to cut him down, turn him into a pincushion and kill but—his stomach cramped like nothing he'd ever felt before—the shadows of the dark night leaped to life: a shield of dark, invisible hands that restrained them and tugged on them.

"Nico, you're doing this?" gasped Persis, knocking out the last of the Huntresses.

The undetermined demigod nodded weakly. "It felt like me," he murmured, caressing his abdomen gingerly. "But I've never actually done it before."

"Shadows," muttered Persis, glancing at the strewn of silver-clad bodies. "Huh, maybe you're a son of Nyx? The goddess of night?"

"Maybe." He had to take her word for it. He couldn't remember which one of his parents had raised him, whether it had been a mortal mother or father. "That was impressive, wasn't it?" Nico had to resist from running his lower lip across his teeth—a nervous habit as he waited anxiously for an answer.

Persis laughed and kissed his cheek.

The spot of skin tingled like someone had slapped him, but in a good, good way. Which didn't make sense—being slapped was a good thing?

Nico's coherency went out of the window and his expression must've been hilarious because Persis snickered. Her smile made her eyes curve into a nice shape too.

"Actually, no—you didn't lift a finger to help," said Persis with her typical brutal honesty. Her grin contradicted what might've been a criticism: "I just want to do that." She tapped his cheek to show what she meant before she jogged away.

Nico gaped.

(But he did not miss how, when she turned sideways, she didn't quite stop smiling)

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xXx

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"I want to go," Nico said.

"You're too young, Nico," said Bianca disapprovingly.

"Age matters little when I've got skill." Nico turned to Thalia and Persis to appeal to them. "I helped, yesterday! The shadow trick thingy: Bianca can't even do that!"

"I haven't even tried," Bianca growled, slightly insulted by what her brother was insinuating. "And this is the Huntress' quest; Zoë gets the final say as to who'll replace Phoebe—and that was a nasty trick your friends pulled, Nico!"

"That's the Stolls' style," Persis murmured drily, examining her nails, not seeming interested.

She said the wrong thing. Thalia scowled heavily. "Why does Ms. Stuck-up gets the final say? If we're going by association with our godly patron, I have the highest authority." Her scowl softened when she saw Nico. Tugging her jacket closer to wrap around her body, she said, "Any kid who can restrain Huntresses is good enough for me. At least you can shut these two up when things when they get annoying."

Zoë gnashed her teeth. "I was planning on taking the satyr Grover."

"Because you need someone to suck up to you to boost your ego?" Persis arched a sarcastic brow. Nico smirked in agreement.

"That's the most ridiculous thing thou can come up with, daughter of Poseidon!" cried the Lieutenant of Artemis. "The satyr has the tracking song. What can this boy do?"

Persis met Nico's eyes across the others. "He can prove himself," she said simply.

And Nico knew then, by hook or by crook, he was going on this quest with them.

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xXx

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"She's out cold," Zoë noted darkly. Her brows were furrowed, underlying the concern for the unconscious Bianca laying her head in her lap. "I'll set up a tent for her to rest in. Try to find where we've landed."

Nico was still miffed at his sister for her desertion of him—so a dozen of sisters was better than a brother?—but he was worried. Maybe if Bianca hadn't been so stubborn to insist, right after the disastrous battle with the Nemean Lion, that she could do the same shadow tricks, they wouldn't be here: lost among mounds of snow, no civilization in sight, and she unconscious.

"You must be able to do the same thing," Thalia was saying. It took him a second to realize the daughter of Zeus was talking to him.

Nico shrugged. "I guess. If using it means I get knocked out though, I don't think I'll be trying soon." He kept a close eye as Zoë Nightshade raised a foldable tent, one she'd plucked out of her backpack. The ease in which she moved Bianca belied centuries of training and her arm strength.

"What else can you do with it?" asked Persis curiously, interested.

Nico had no idea. "Let's try now," he suggested.

Thalia saluted him mockingly. "Go ahead. We'll stay here," she maneuvered Persis out of direct line of fire, "and you can try—just don't blow anything up. Prophecies are self-fulfilling enough already; we don't need to help it."

Nico cracked a dry grin. "Here goes nothing…" He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. He hadn't even tried for three minutes before he was interrupted by breathless giggles. Nico's eyes flew open, annoyed and embarrassed: Persis had been snickering behind cupped palms.

The daughter of Zeus stared at her cousin. "What's gotten into you?" she asked incredulously.

"He's so cute when he's concentrating," laughed Persis, wiping a tear from her eye. "I can't take it!"

"Shut up!" snapped Nico, cheeks redder than chili, and not from the cold. Persis' shadow rippled and before he could stop it, the shadow had clasped Persis in its unforgiving, phantom grip. The daughter of Poseidon stopped laughing, startled and shocked.

Thalia's hand flew to her bracelet. "Holy—!"

"Hey!" protested Persis, squirming as best as she could to dislodge the grip. "OK! I'm sorry I laughed, now let me go!"

"I'm practicing," said Nico innocently. She glared. He laughed.

"What're you laughing at?" she shouted. She switched her narrow-eyed gaze to her female cousin. "Help me," she said to Thalia, almost whining. The dark-haired daughter of Zeus snorted, not answering her plea.

Nico couldn't throw away the opportunity to tease Persis in retaliation for earlier: "She's so cute when she's scared. I can't take it." He wasn't used to being so brazen—and he had to swallow down the embarrassment bubbling in his stomach almost as soon as he'd done talking—but the laugh he earned from Thalia, and the fierce blush on Persis' cheeks, was worth every drop of embarrassment.

"If thou are quite done with the courtship," hissed a voice icier than winter; Zoë Nightshade had emerged from the tent, "We might actually make progress."

"We're stuck in the middle of nowhere," Persis pointed out, having slumped into once Nico released her. "And we're trying to get Nico to replicate the shadow travel trick."

"And?" Zoë prompted impatiently. "Or do we need to wait for Bianca to wake up? Time is of essence. Save your tomfoolery for until Lady Artemis has been rescued."

"I'm not risking travel with an unconscious member," stated Thalia flatly. "Nico, we can continue your shadow grip or we can train you in swordplay." Nico blinked: Thalia was smirking in a way that put him off, her eyes positively glittered with malice. "I'm sure, given a few hours' time, we can help you improve. Persis and I are one of the best fighters in Camp."

"Which goes to show how far the heroes' standards have fallen," sniffed Zoë.

Persis mimicked Zoë mockingly; sniffing, she said, "Yet substandard as we are, we've completely plowed your Huntresses into the ground during a game of Capture-the-Flag."

"For the first time in decades," hissed Zoë, rankled into defensiveness.

"What does it say about us and you then?" Persis retorted, the corners of her eyes tightening slightly.

Shaking her head in disgust, Zoë retreated into the tent. Persis muttered the ABCs under her breath, perhaps to calm herself down. Thalia was fiddling with her mace canister. Once the last of Zoë had gone, she looked up.

"One second later and I would've skewered her," she huffed.

Nico snorted. "Oh, don't laugh," said Thalia to him as she hefted her spear, freed from Mist form, "I can always compensate with you."

(Somehow, having Thalia chasing him didn't sound as bad or as worrying)

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xXx

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Wow, it's been over a year. I won't be surprised if people forgot about it. Anyway, this chapter is short, only about over 2k+ words but I've put in some relationship development. And some changes in the quest.

Any suggestions to get my inspiration going?

R&R