Everyone Percy and Nico had known during the war had died.

Save for the gods, of course; but they hardly mattered. Percy and Nico were left only because of their fathers, who had turned them into gods. Hazel's soul had returned to the Void of Creation, as her time had been up once the blow had hit her; Frank had gone soon after, followed by Jason, then Piper, Annabeth, Grover, Thalia– and Leo had been long since dead when he fell from the sky.

Triton had perished, the sound of his conch-shell echoing even long after; Percy suspected that was part in why his father had turned him into a god, although neither Poseidon nor Amphitrite– who had left soon after the celebration and funerals– would give him an proper answer.

Percy had become the god of Loyalty, Pegasi, Tides, and he had been crowned heir to Atlantis, despite the glare Zeus and his half-siblings had sent him during his title-ceremony.

Nico had been titled the god of Souls, Precious gemstones, and Shadows, and Hades had officially crowned him as Prince of the Underworld; as well as a Judge of the Dead.

Percy sat in his room in his father's palace; even after months he was distraught. They hadn't won the war, but the gods said they did, and at what cost? Everyone he had ever known, ever loved, had died. The Olympians' didn't show it, but their own grief for their children was plain in their eyes and silence.

Percy hadn't wanted to become a god, but it seemed fate had other plans. He had just wanted to grow old and start a family with Annabeth. However, that was now just a past memory, a memory that always brought a tear to his eye when his mind thought of the plans they had once made.

Nico, he didn't want to become a god either; it hadn't been long since got over his crush for Percy, just to be left alone with him again, and although they didn't cross paths because of their differing domains, it seemed expected of them to stick together.

The two new gods hadn't really spoken since their title naming ceremony, however, both struck with grief decided to stay in their respective parents' domains, both mourning in their own ways. Percy's grief had been rageful, at first, and then had become simple silence in his fathers palace.

Nico's had been simmering in his chest, although he had long since learned to let go of the past, he still would wander the bits of the mortal realm he was allowed. Even though he was now a god, and didn't need to eat mortal food, he would still get a happy meal every so often.

Percy, one day, finally decided to get out of his father's palace, appearing on the beach of Camp Half-Blood; the once full and thriving camp now seemed dull and left.

Even though he was a god, he started to walk around, remembering the times he had here, both good and bad. Most of the cabins were teetering between usable and wrecked, the amphitheater reduced to rubble; the Big House was half-intact, yellow tape blocking off any hazardous areas.

Chiron was still at the camp, he was seen walking around the camp, his head low. He was often walking the border or near the woods, a small gaggle of the remaining campers– both Roman and Greek– around him. The Centaur and the demigods gave Percy an uneasy smile, nobody had been coping with the losses well.

They once had two full camps, and now they barely had enough demigods to fill one; they had practically lost the whole of the Roman Legion, nevermind what little had made up Camp Half-Blood.

Percy nodded to his old teacher, and gave him a small but sad smile. "Chiron." He greeted, and was in turn greeted with murmurs from the demigods; it pained him how wary they looked in his presence. "I see you're rebuilding camp."

Chiron nodded, stepping the few feet in between them and giving his old student a long hug. "It'll take time, but we're resilient. We would not exist for as long as we have if not for it."

He smiled into Chiron's shoulder, distantly aware of the fact that he shouldn't have been at his old mentor's shoulder, considering how tall the centaur was. When he pulled away, he let out a breath he shouldn't have been holding. Technically, he didn't have to breathe, and it was getting harder and harder to remember how breathing worked.

"Mr. Di Angelo visited us, a few days ago." Chiron said as he began walking again, hooves digging into the soft, torn-up earth. "He didn't do anything, of course, but it was nice to see he was well."

Shock flickered across Percy's face. "He's been out of the underworld?"

"Yes; as far as I know, he still travels. It's good to see you out of Atlantis." Chiron gave him an amused but pointed look. He stopped quite abruptly, and Percy stumbled when he noticed; Harley, the youngest Hephaestus camper, clambered onto Chiron's back, a metal disk in his hands.

"Yeah well, pretty sure dad was going to kick me out sooner or later; I just beat him to it." He said, smiling softly as Harley briefly met his gaze. "The halls were starting to look the same, and dad's not letting me do anything yet."

Chiron chuckled as he resumed walking. "He worries for you."

Percy snorted. "He's made that clear many times."

The two fell into silence as they finished the 'patrol', which was more circling the cabins and Big House that day. It was comfortable, however, and Percy felt no need to fill it. Even the campers were silent, which… made grief and anger stir in his heart, but they seemed more than fine with it, and so he let it be.

It wasn't his place, anyway. Anymore. He tore his eyes away from the group, and instead stared angrily at the sky for a moment.

"I assume Nico and I are the only ones' who've visited?" He asked.

"Hestia, once; she could not stay for long. Demeter wrote me a strongly worded letter with a box of seeds to get us back up to speed…Hermes, once as well, to deliver said letter and box." Chiron chuckled, reaching back to make sure Harley didn't fall. "But yes, only you two."

Percy glared once more at the sky, shoving his hands into his pockets; Riptide, in pen form, jabbed at his palm. "I don't suppose there's room for me to stay for a night?"

Chiron hummed. "We could make some, of course."

He smiled. "Thank you, Chiron." And it was perhaps the most sincere he'd ever been towards his old teacher in years. Chiron patted his shoulder as he led the ground back into the Big house, a few of the demigods dispersing to the remaining cabins.

He threw a glare at the Zeus cabin, noticing with underlying annoyance that his cabin– his father's cabin– hadn't been fixed, and yet Zeus's was pristine; a temple, not a cabin to be lived in, he noted as none of the campers went towards it.

Harley was still on Chiron's back as they entered the Big House, the wood creaking loudly under hooves-and-shoes. Chiron was careful to keep Harley from sliding around on his back; the kid didn't even seem to notice they were moving, so focused on the metal disk in his hands.

"I'm sorry for not being around." He began, looking around as his heart sank. Seymour– Dionysus's old leopard head– was snoozing above the fireplace, couches and legless bunks without the top bunk laid out on the floor, blanket piles spotted around. "..It-"

"It's alright, Perseus." Chiron said, setting Harley on one of the couches. "Grief is a heavy emotion. I don't blame you at all."

Percy's shoulders' slumped. "I should've helped; you know that, Chiron."

"Why do you think camp is still under repair? We haven't lost this many campers in a long time; back to back, in the tapestry of fate." His tone was soft as he slowly laid himself onto one of the blanket piles. "Only a few of the rooms are intact, and I warn you to be careful when going upstairs."

He wanted to say more– he wanted to console Chiron, tell him that he was going to help out, now, and they he could rest– but Percy found himself simply nodding and walking up the stairs, using a little bit of his new-found godly magic to fix some of the cracks and holes. The upstairs was worse off than the ground floor, possibly because Giants tended to be taller than the ground floor; save for Gaea's madness, of course.

Most of the doors had fallen off their hinges and had been replaced with curtains, giving an illusion of privacy. He could hear motion behind some of them, but he didn't dare look into the rooms.

He may be a god, but he was stubbornly mortal, and mortals– as Sally had taught him– had manners.

Percy kept his steps quiet as he observed some of the rooms, the floor patching itself up under his feet. His mind wandered to the dark corners; were any monsters hiding there? What laid in the darkness, hissing?

"Percy?" Came a raspy voice, and he spun around.

Apparently, Nico hid in the shadows; Percy shouldn't have been surprised.

"Nico?" He parroted, and he was certain the look on his face was full of shock and surprise. Nico looked– different. His hair was longer, and although his skin looked warm and body fuller, his skin still sunk in around his eyes and cheeks, gray shadows making their home in every crevice of his clothes and skin. He wasn't wearing a jacket, and was instead just wearing a plain black button up and worn black jeans. "I didn't know you were here."

Nico scuffed his shoe at a loose piece of wood, which disintegrated into dust. "The shadows were spying. They can't help it; I ask them to."

'On me?' He almost asked, but bit his tongue instead. "...Camp's alive."

"As much as it can be." Nico sighed, crouching and poking at something on the floor. "Your father called mine when he realized you weren't in your room.'

Percy groaned. "Seriously?"

"I know, right? We haven't seen each other since the ceremony." Nico clicked his tongue, pulling up a beaded bracelet from the wreckage, tucking it over his wrist and shaking it for a second. "He– my father, not yours– sent me to find you to get Poseidon off his back."

"Seriously?!"

"Hey, nothing about my relationship with him has changed other than the fact I can do more work for him." Nico deadpanned, rising. His hair kept falling over his face, and he kept having to brush it away, which only resulted in getting hair stuck in his rings. "I mean, he gets weird about it sometimes, but…"

Percy grimaced. "He's been trying to get me to stand with him for meetings. Sure, I can lead, but it's not like I want to."

"He has all the time in the world; quite literally." Nico offered. "He's just never had to deal with something like this before. I doubt he thought he'd have to teach you how to be a god, nevermind a prince."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." He grumbled, moving to check out a hallway that seemingly ended on a drop, but possibly had just collapsed into the ground floor.

"That wasn't what I was saying and you know it." Nico shot back, shadow-traveling and appearing next to Percy. "Honestly, Percy, you need to get out more."

"Says mister-don't-visit-just-hide-in-the-shadows himself."

"I'm not the one who's been labeled a cryptid by Olympian tabloids." He pointed out. "I mean, being in my father's palace sucks, but we're known for being weird and not very sociable; you are known to be sociable, as is your father."

"So what, I should hide in the underworld with you? I think camps' safe enough." Percy squinted at a caved-in room, running his hand over the door frame. "And haven't you been reported to be skipping out on your duties?"

Nico just shrugged. "If Father can't catch me, he can't make me do work."

He opened his mouth to say 'But he's a god, why can't he catch you?' when reality sucker-punched him in the chest to remind him; they, he and Nico, were also gods.

He knocked his head against the doorframe with a thunk. Nico made a sound like a laugh behind him, the sound of shifting shoes and wood being moved accompanying him. "Don't hurt yourself."

"We're immortal and invincible, Nico." He said. "It's nearly impossible."

Nico pried him away from the doorway, oddly silent. "Immortality and Invincibility only go hand in hand because we are gods." He said as he shoved some of the caved-in ceiling away. "Godhood is its own brand of immortality."

"You make it seem as if you've been a god longer than me." Percy frowned, thumbs going through the belt loops of his jeans as Nico searched for something.

"I've been working with gods for a lot longer; Hestia has good insight. Dionysus, too. You should talk to them someday."

Percy went quiet.

Nico made a clicking noise, reminding Percy of a bat. "What are you looking for?" He asked, tone awkward as he shuffled in the doorway.

"Soul."

"What?"

"There's a soul here. Too much damage to reach their body." Nico went on, grunting as he shoved a thick piece of wood up. "I may shirk my duties, but some of them I can't resist."

He frowned; was that why he felt so weird some days? Was it a god thing? Or was it a Nico thing; Nico was really weird about ghosts and funeral duties even before they had become gods.

He was going to bet it was a Nico-or-Underworld thing. The implications started to make his head spin. "Want help?

Nico's head shot up, brown-gold eyes staring at him like a deer in headlights. "...Go teach the campers canoeing; I doubt they've had that experience." He said carefully. "Unless you want to see a disfigured, rotting corpse."

Percy rolled his eyes, walking into the room and helping Nico shove the broken walls aside; whenever Nico touched the wood, it turned to dust a moment later, while Percy was left with heavy chunks of wood.

It wasn't long until they found a body.

It wasn't any wonder why Chiron made them wear that bright, retna-burning orange, Percy thought as he stared at the body. The only identifiers were the beaded leather cord and the orange shirt; the corpse– because it was a corpse– was gray and bloated, save for the areas where its skull had caved in from the ceiling falling on it.

He shuddered, images of Annabeth and Jason and Hazel and Piper and Frank flashing through his mind, all gray and bloody and maggot riddled–

"Hey." Came a soft voice, a small hand pressing against his shoulder. "You can leave."

Percy shook his head. "No." He had to; it was the least he could do.

But he could do a whole lot more.

Nico stared at him for a little longer before he brushed off the remaining wood pieces off of the corpse, murmuring something– probably a prayer– under his breath. His hands were gentle as he cradled the body to his chest, and it took Percy longer than it should've to realize that Nico wasn't praying.

He was singing.

It was soft, and methodical as he cleaned the body up, placing two coins into the mouth of it.

"His name was Peter Killian." Nico said, once he had laid the corpse back down. "Give him a moment to pass over."

Percy was quiet. The body– Peter– didn't move, nor was there a wind, but the coins vanished from its– his– mouth. Nico waved his hands, and the shadows took the body of Peter Killian away.

"To the cemetery." Nico explained without him having to ask. "I don't think Chiron wants to see another dead camper."

Percy swallowed, his mouth dry. He didn't want to think about dead campers or souls or how camp had an official cemetery. "...Wanna get takeout?"

Nico stared at him.

Percy stared back.

"I'd like that." Nico said, and they left camp.