Elàte sto Spìti

Obvious were her intentions. The point of carrying two cherished items to a place as putrid and dark as the Pluto cabin was only that of a summoning possibility. No, maybe some thought she would go to retrieve a lost soul, as Dakota had first thought, but in the memory of her eyes, he could see indifference to where the lost was. It was how the lost was behaving, performing, feeling.

And so Annabeth's presence in the Hades cabin had not intrigued the curiosity of the child of death. He had simply tinkered with the object he held, a beloved toy of a god; a figurine. It was the one he had been missing for a complete set in Mythomagic, and now, his only piece of the set.

"Sorry, Annabeth," Nico Di Angelo murmured, staring intently at the now deformed face, a chewed sword broken at the hilt, small traces of teeth marks. His new dog, Mrs. O'Leary had found the toy very… interesting.

"Can you fix it?" she asked quietly, staring at the beaded leather in her palm.

Nico hesitated, the toy lowering to his side, and he turned to her. "I don't know how," he bit his lower lip. "I would, honestly…"

Her fist closed around the necklace and she met his eyes. He wanted to say that he saw a strong sense of determination, maybe hope, glinting through her grey irises but all he could find was the silent plea of death. Solace. She was seeking solace through his power.

"I need a Happy Meal," he murmured, grabbing his black jean jacket and moving toward the door, followed closely by an inquisitive daughter of Athena. He slung his jacket over her shoulder as she asked him what on earth a Happy Meal could possibly do. He spoke over his shoulder, heading to the Hermes cabin. "It's food for a spirit. The natural custom, I guess, is wine, but you know… age… restrictions. Minor stuff like that."

"Of course," Annabeth's words died as she followed him, fingering a bead with a painted on trident; the first bead attached to the leather. She kept a mild pace as he sauntered to the cabin door and knocked, his occasional sighs making the mental note in her mind that he had summoned multiple times before.

The door swung open to a furiously bright Travis Stoll, a can of soda in his hand. He held the drink in offering to be rejected and leaned on the doorframe, looking Nico over.

"Young Nicholas," he teased, barely glimpsing at the girl behind him pressing her thumb to the cap of a pen. "What can I do for you this time? A seesaw? Barbie Doll?"

Nico narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth tightly. "I ask you for one box of sand—"

"To find buried treasure, no doubt," Travis supplied, nodding his head, hardly listening as Nico growled deep in his throat. "Hey, wise girl." He nodded to her with a small wave and waited for her to roll her eyes or give him a cheap 'hello' as payment for his taking time away from his life to bother with her.

She just smiled weakly, a nod of the same strength level. She pressed her thumb harder on the cap of the pen until it had turned an impish excuse for the color white. Her eyes trailed back to the, what he had assumed, empty hand and her palm opened barely an inch to expose a camp necklace.

"You got another one?" Travis asked, eyebrows raised. "I knew you were here for a long time, but…" he trailed off long enough to realize Nico was giving him the usual knock it off look that he had received from teachers and Chiron for an unhealthy supply of counts. "What?"

"Just get me a dozen Happy Meals, will you?" Nico asked, pulling two golden drachmas from his back pocket. "It's all I've got now since you and Connor gambled the rest off of me."

"Pardon," Connor interrupted, moving to the side of his brother from his bunk bed. He held out a finger as if it were an excuse for his eavesdropping ears. "But we prefer the term cheated." The two brothers nodded in agreement. "And it'll take mortal cash, too, if you want mortal food."

"Why?" Nico made a disbelieving, curious face at them, his lip curled. "You're just going to steal it anyways."

Connor moved the one finger into a whole palm and held it out to the son of Hades expectantly. "No dough, no go. It'll be ten bucks."

"Happy Meals are only—" he was abruptly cut off by a 'humph' from the Stoll brothers in perfect unison, Travis smirking and his brother raising his eyebrows, both eyes closed loosely in attempts of their so-called sophisticated manner. Nico stared at them indignantly and turned, heading down the couple of stairs to the cabin and nodding for Annabeth to follow. "I was going to the Underworld anyway. Might as well pick up a few for emergencies."

He kept going. Annabeth, however, kept glancing back every few seconds to soon realize that the Stoll brothers were having a quiet debate, possibly in the midst of changing their minds. She ignored them as they hadn't chased the two down the stairs, and caught up to Nico.

"You can't come," he told her flatly, his eyes never straying from Thalia's tree.

"What makes you think I want to come?" she asked evenly, looking over at him. He was around her height now, having reached a minor growth spurt, just a few inches shorter and about equal in maturity. He didn't act as he had when he was only one or two years younger, jumping around as if he were having an accident because Mr. D was a real thing and it was just about as cool as a baboon in a Lakers jersey. He was quiet and avoided the attention that he could have had, same as Percy.

"It's the Underworld," he said after a moment of contemplating handing over any ideas. If he mentioned that it was home of souls, maybe she would've risked her life as Percy had done for his own mother. He didn't want her running freely through a pasture of dead people with a serious lust for hanging onto the living. "Who wouldn't want to go?"

"Nico, I don't want to bring him back," Annabeth told him coolly, stopping in her place. He hardly faltered in his gait, continuing his trek up the hill. Fine, he thought. I'm not stopping for you.

She rolled her eyes, aggravated, and moved to catch up with him. He passed the borders closely followed by the blond, holding tightly to her sudden rebellion to follow. A moment of disciplined silence was cracked when Nico did turn to her and looked into her eyes almost harshly. "Yes, you do. You know you want to and I can't let you."

Annabeth pursed her lips and rolled Riptide through her fingertips, avoiding a move she would deeply regret. "I told you that I don't."

"Annabeth," he told her, clenching his jaw. "You're telling me that if I did take you to the Underworld you wouldn't head straight for Elysium? Not that you could get in, but still."

"No, I wouldn't," she agreed and crossed her arms, making a new decision. She would prove him wrong. She backed away, crossing the borders, and stood defiantly behind them. "And to prove it, I'll stay."

"Fine," he retorted, turning again to walk away from her. Only once his back was turned did he give himself the pleasure of a smirk, because honestly, it was just too easy to trick a very stubborn, very prideful daughter of Athena.

Annabeth had not been tricked, though, as he liked to think. She had known exactly what he was doing, toying with her. And she could have easily said that she would prove her will power by coming with him and not making a step towards the gates of Elysium, but she knew herself better than anyone. She would be weak, and would bend to her will in the matter of a moment. With her staying behind, she had proved her will in private, to herself, just as she liked it.

Nico disappeared in a shadow quickly enough, Annabeth keeping her feet pegged to the ground. She refused to take a step until the boy had returned with her Happy Meals. And so she stood in her place, fingers curled around the two objects of most importance to her, and waited. And time passed, painstakingly slow.

The sun found itself ducking low behind a hill when a gentle night breeze rustled the brush around the forest. Annabeth leaned her back against Thalia's tree, nodding off to a land of nothing, when the shadows around her shimmered and captured the form of a younger boy He came forward with a shopping bag in his hand. The smell of fast food wafted around him, causing her mouth to water.

Nico reached his hand in and tossed her a cheeseburger as repentance for his taking so long. She gave him a grateful nod and peeled away an edge of wrapping, biting into the mystery meat of McDonalds. The buns were close to soggy and the cheese still cold, just how she liked her occasional fast food.

Nico walked to his cabin calmly, peering into his bag and counting how many meals he had left. Annabeth, who had been following with meat and cheese jumbled in her mouth, was considerably dumbfounded as he walked around to the back of the cabin and produced his skeletal ring from his finger. He rubbed it between his two fingers chanting something incomprehensible. The ground trembled around the two and long crevices broke through the soil. Annabeth backed away from one, finally understanding the form of fear that had enveloped campers whenever they came close to this boy.

His chanting grew louder until low groans escaped the large cracks blemishing the ground. Annabeth pursed her lips and a bony hand shot up and grabbed the ledge. Another hand joined it nearby and up came a skeleton with ragged clothing, holes torn through them. More followed and soon, Annabeth stood face-to-face with four depressing skeletons.

"Dig," Nico ordered them. Annabeth shot him a look as she worried that maybe they would turn on him and he rolled his eyes at the absurd conclusion. "Please."

And they did. They stuck their palms deep into the earth and scooped up mounds of dirt, tossing them over their shoulder blades. Annabeth worried at the beads in her hands, fiddling with the pen in the other. She brought her hands together and rubbed the two objects, making an odd heat. She couldn't help but think that maybe he wouldn't come. Maybe he had forgotten her in death; he didn't mean what he had told Dakota.

The skeletons dug until they had a six foot deep, rectangular hole, and then proceeded to crawl out and look to the master expectantly. He waved his hand and they crumbled into a pile of bones; no elaborate puff of smoke to banish them to the Underworld.

Nico dug in his shopping bag and produced a six pack of soda. He popped the top on one and let it pour into the hole, splashing the dirt unceremoniously. "Let the dead taste again. Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember." Annabeth nearly winced at his chose of words, but let it pass.

He poured the last of the cokes into the hole with a satisfied shake of the can and tossed it on the ground off to his side. The cans sank slowly into the ground as if it were merely water. He pulled a white bag with kids cartoons doodled on them and emptied its contents—a burger and fries—into the decent grave. He pulled another twelve pack and a few more Happy Meals and dumped them into the ground. He continued chanting words Annabeth didn't want to hear. She understood memories and grave, but that was all she could muster as low as his voice was.

The grave bubbled, a brown, foaming liquid rising to the top, fries floating through it. A thin layer of fog emerged and blanketed the soil around them, as if it were coming from the frothy grave. All was silent but the sound of the two demigods breathing, and then it happened. Blue, vaguely human figures appeared, seeming to have materialized from thin air.

They drifted towards the pit and Nico pulled his Stygian Iron sword as if this was an everyday happening and he knew exactly how to control it. The figures did freeze in their spot and hovered, watching the metal carefully. One soul, however, bravely appeared and drifted straight past him, as if he had gone unnoticed. Nico's eyes drifted over to the spirit, as did his sword hand, but he suddenly turned back to the others, as if he could recognize the featureless creature.

It knelt at the pool and drank and brought French fries and burgers to its mouth. The more it filled its mouth, the more it became a solid human. It stood, much clearer than it had been, and Annabeth recognized his mangled, unruly black hair and now-dull sea green eyes.

"Speak," Nico ordered, keeping his sword extended to the other souls.

And when he spoke his voice was like dry, crumpled paper, from extreme lack of use.

A/N: It's a three-shot now because of the doubt of creativity.