Tonight is campfire night. I sit at the back of the group and try not to be seen to much, after all, I am a son of hades... no one wants me here. I lean back against the tree behind me and watch her. She sits next to her friends, Annabeth, Percy, and Leo. Leo; I could never compare to him. She doesn't even see me.
"Nico?" Chiron calls. I sigh and stand up. Immediately people look at me. Not only am I strange, but I also have to be 5 foot 11 inches and pencil thin; in other words, i stick out in every way.
"Yeah?" I ask.
"Come, show the other campers what you were doing yesterday." He says. I gulp, I really hope he didn't mean the thing where I found how to make life sources appear, because the showed up in the way I though of the life form. I look at Chiron and shake my head.
"Don't be so shy. Come on over." he insists. I sigh and obey, standing next to him.
"I'll need a volunteer." I say. Several hands fly up and I point at one of the people. He walks down and stands in front of me and I recognize him as a child of Hermes. I close my eyes and concentrate. Sure enough, a little, see-through, blue tinted image appears of him playing a prank on a little girl. Everyone around laughs and stands up to be next. They all form a line and, one bye one, I show them the way their life appears to me. My friend Percy shows up swimming and his girlfriend Annabeth is building something. Leo is working hard and covered in grease, then I stop when she is standing in front of me, just a few feet away. Thalia, close enough for me to touch if I wanted to.
"Whats wrong?" She asks. I shake my head and snap out of it.
"Nothing, just stand still." I say quietly. She nods and I close my eyes. I open them again once I have a stable image showing in front of me. I see what it is and wince. Its Thalia, she is sitting on a hill reading. Sure, no big deal... right? No, wrong. This is my favorite image of her. And the problem: Instead of blue the image is in full color and definitely not see-through.
"Crap." I whisper and slash my hand through it. The image floats away in a colored smoke then vanishes. I wince and scratch the back of my head.
"Sorry, I-" I start, but I notice everyone is staring at me with wide eyes. Not knowing what else to do, I run away before anyone can say anything. I stop only after safely in the forest.
"Damn it, Nico! What the hell is wrong with you?" I shout at myself, hitting a tree and cracking the skin on my hands. Oh well. I slide back to the ground and hold my head in my hands. I can just hear the campers making fun of me already. Just another thing to add to my list of abnormalities. I tense when I feel a hand on my back.
"Go away, Chiron. Can't you see I've made enough of a fool out of my self?" I say.
"I don't know about Chiron, but I don't think you've made a fool out of yourself." Says a female voice. I lift my head up and spin out from under the hand into a standing position. There she stands, her black hair slightly windblown and her face tinted pink from running after me.
"You don't? But I mean, I really didn't want to show the skill in the... and then when you were... and then the image was... oh gods!" I say, realizing that I was probably sounding like an idiot to her.
"Nico. Shut it. Its fine." She says with a smirk.
"No, no, no, no, no! The other campers saw that! And then... no, no, no... And you know now that I... shit-" I say, interrupted by the feeling of someone's lips on mine. I pull back and look at her.
"Thalia?" I ask. She shrugs and with a smile says,
"I didn't know you liked me as much as I liked you." I smile and kiss her. After a few seconds I pull back and she takes my hand in her's, leading me back to the campfire.