Nico had just about managed to sit up when she found him.
He drank and drank and drank the fire, taking occasional breaks to vomit the stuff right back up. He wasn't sure how long he laid there, caught in the tortuous cycle of drinking and expelling the flaming liquid, but he only began to slow down when he started to regain more feeling in his legs and feet. It was gradual, subtle even. At first, there was nothing; a complete and total absence of substance from the waist down.
After that, there were pinpricks. Light bursts of tingling in his upper thighs that gave him some sort of wild hope that he may live to walk again. Those pinpricks, those small, scattered dots of stinging heat, they blossomed and grew into heavy, leaden throbs of pain that made his head spin. Any movement, no matter how slight, would cause his leg muscles to become enveloped in a blind, searing blanket of flaming heat that brought tears to his eyes.
The pain grew until it was unbearable. It manifested as dark, thick vines that wrapped around his legs, twisting and contorting them so that it felt like they were going to be torn off. His jaw was set in a lock as he grit his teeth harshly, tongue pushing up against the back of his gums as he so desperately tried to alleviate the radiant sense of hurt that kept expanding.
Too much. I drank too much, Nico thought deliriously. He pushed himself away from the flaming river, resting his cheek against the rough gravel and squeezing his eyes shut. The insides of his mouth burned with vivid intensity; with each and every breath he took, small plumes of black smoke would drift out from his nose and mouth.
Through the thick veil of pain, he was shocked to realize that he could quite literally feel his legs mending. Broken bones and warped flesh strained against his black jeans, moving about as his legs tried to repair themselves in real time. It was a surreal experience, almost enough to make him faint, though the liquid fire coursing through his veins kept him awake enough to feel every moment of intense agony.
Even his tears burned. It wouldn't have been a stretch to say that he's drunk more liquid fire than his body could have possibly held. Every single inch of his body was on fire, which Nico took as a sign that despite everything, he was healing. That he was getting better.
"Fuck," Nico muttered under his breath as he finally opened his eyes. The harsh brightness of the River Phlegethon made him squint as he struggled to take in his surroundings. Tartarus. He was here, again. He would have to escape, again.
Well, I guess I should see if I can actually move. Nico took a deep breath of scalding air and drew his sword from its scabbard, stabbing it into the ground and using it to push himself up. It was a slow and painful process, but after what seemed like an eternity, he finally managed to get into a sitting position, which was marginally better than laying face down on the ground.
Then, the air around him tightened. The burning sensation in his chest was quickly replaced with biting frost as all too quickly, his vision began to waver.
Vaguely, Nico noticed that something was sticking out of his chest, just below where his heart, which had stopped beating, was. The coldness spread and for a moment, he thought that it would overtake him, but it quickly vanished, leaving behind a sense of emptiness that was void of either cold or warmth, instead only hosting a spiraling, dizzy sense of nothing. An overwhelmingly sweet aroma permeated the air, assaulting his nostrils and smothering out any bit of oxygen he may have been breathing in.
He looked down. A large, barbed appendage of some kind, colored a matte black that was almost shiny. A spider leg, he supposed. Nico could see himself in its reflection if he looked hard enough. A distorted picture of his face that was barely recognizable. Strange though, how his surroundings seemed to look normal.
A spider leg.
Arachne.
Something possessed him, taking control of his arms which moved at a blinding speed that caught him by surprise. Independent from his mind, his hands moved to lift the sword from the ground and stabbed blindly behind him. A high pitched screeching sound filled the air and suddenly, a cloud of yellow dust started raining down on him.
With monumental effort, he managed to look behind him, catching the last few seconds before Arachne disintegrated completely, leaving behind only the spider leg that she had so graciously stabbed through his chest. Great. A trophy for his efforts then?
A sickly grin worked its way onto Nico's face. He coughed once, twice, then a third time, managing to hack up a mouthful of blood as he did so. Once more, he fell down onto the hard ground as his body failed to support his efforts of sitting up, and as he crawled towards the river of fire, he suspected that he wouldn't be escaping Tartarus with his life.
Time had no meaning, down in the deepest bowels of the Underworld. The very concept was distorted, pulled apart and hastily strung along the lines of fate as events were moved, clipped to fit into the fragile picture of continuity. Of how everything was supposed to happen.
It had not been hours, nor days, nor weeks, nor months, nor years.
It had only been a certain amount of time before Nico stood up.
An amount of time that was lost, irretrievable.
But still, he stood, skin as white as chalk and with a shaking gait to his steps. His face stood out in deep contrast to his shocking paleness, with deep, blackened scorch marks that marred his features in distinctly crooked lines, as if he had been struck by lightning. They provided a sort of depth to his countenance, like his head was nothing but a skull covered in a thin layer of skin, with nothing in between. All in all, he was the splitting image of a skeleton, or at least the closest a human could get to one without dying.
His hands, which were mostly just bones at this point, were scored with angry blisters, some of which literally smoked from prolonged contact with the river's flames. Not a single bit of flesh or muscle remained. In fact, a few of his nails had fallen out completely at some point, having no ground to stand on.
Did it truly matter though? He could still walk. He could still swing his sword, albeit with monumental effort. That's all he really needed.
He traveled downstream, using his sword as a walking stick as he looked ahead in a stupor. The spider leg he had been stabbed by still remained embedded into his body. He didn't have the strength to pull it out, and wasn't entirely sure if doing so was entirely beneficial in the first place. Even after filing it down, it hung limply from both sides of his chest which added a somewhat uncomfortable weight to his movements, but other than that, it didn't bother him too much.
Nico took out a water bottle from Annabeth's backpack and took a long drink from it. He had long since drunk what liquid remained in them since landing, so instead of a relaxing gulp of water, he had himself a mouthful of portable liquid fire. It was better than crouching down to cup more of the disgusting stuff into his mouth every other step though.
It was a shame that despite technically being a drink, the flames did nothing to quench his thirst. Unsurprisingly, it only emboldened it along with the gnawing hunger in his stomach. He knew that he wasn't in any real danger of starving to death, or even dying of dehydration. In fact, he could subsist entirely on Phlegethon if he needed to. Still, it wouldn't exactly be healthy. Plus, with time, he would only get hungrier and hungrier, thirstier and thirstier.
He was used to it. Starving, that is. But as more and more time passed, the hunger only started to occupy more space in his mind. His body pleaded, begged for food, for water, for anything besides the steady stream of fire and toxic air he had been feeding himself. So when Nico came across the carcass of a monster, he stopped.
From what he could tell, it was a myrmeke, though it was hard to tell given that something had torn it to pieces. Its carapace had large chunks of brownish flesh stuck to it, which was dripping with a foul-smelling green, somewhat coagulated liquid.
It was tempting. He was profoundly disgusted at both himself and at the desecrated monster in front of him, but by gods was it tempting. He even caught himself drooling a bit as his stomach rumbled at the sight of it. He knew that myrmekes were venomous, but if his limited schooling taught him anything, it was that as long as it wasn't poisonous, it could be eaten... probably.
He kneeled down in front of the carcass and after a long moment of contemplation, cut off a chunk of meat from the carapace. An idea struck him, and he quickly hobbled back over to Phlegethon and dunked it into the river for a few moments in hopes of cooking it. When he pulled it back out though, he was disappointed to find that it hadn't changed at all.
Great. Raw ant flesh. Nico thought. Still, when basked in that glowing orange light from the river, it didn't look so bad. He stared at it, mouth watering, but right as he started to open his mouth, he abruptly flinched backwards and shook his head.
No. Nononononono. Not yet. Not yet. Not like this. Nico scolded himself. Despite his rebelling thoughts, he stuffed the wedge of monster meat into Annabeth's backpack. Later. Maybe. If I really need it. Or if I can cook it, somehow.
With his stomach rumbling with despair, he trudged onwards until he came across a large precipice, similar to the one he climbed down to get to the Phlegethon in the first place. However, unlike the wide, expansive flats of black gravel and glass he'd been walking across, what awaited below was a stretch of gray plains, with black trees sparsely scattered everywhere. Large, glossy blisters dotted the ground, some oozing with pus, some on the verge of bursting entirely.
"Where monsters are reborn." Nico muttered to himself as he peeked down from the cliff face. It was a steep drop, but not so much that it made climbing down impossible. He had a length of web rope with him, but there was nothing around him that could act like an anchor. In other words, he was left with no choice.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly crouched down and began lowering himself down. This time, when he put weight on his legs, there wouldn't be that awful crackling noise, and he could actually feel fresh throbbings of pain whenever he moved, so he took that as a sign that he would be able to climb down without shattering his legs again.
Still, Nico took out his bottle of fire and uncapped it. He was sure that he'd need to drink some of it on his way down, lest he pass out and break his neck by falling. His body was entirely too weak to be doing any sort of physical activity, but he'd be damned if he couldn't force it to. Nothing that a bit of magical healing fire couldn't fix.