Chapter Text
Nico tossed and turned, falling off his bed and jolting awake in a jumble of cold sweat and blankets. He shakily untangled himself from his blankets, cursing himself for taking longer than he felt he should have. He picked himself up off the cabin floor, still in his pajamas, and ran out his door. He stopped short, seeing shapes in the darkness that he recognized from his nightmare. “Go away,” he growled, his eyes flashing in the darkness. “You don’t scare me. I’m the son of Hades. I’ve dealt with worse than you and if you don’t believe me, you can fight me.”
Hazel stepped out of the cabin and stood beside him. She yawned loudly and stretched her arms, placing one around Nico’s shoulders. “Who are you talking to?” she asked him sleepily, not seeing anything.
Nico’s eyes were softer when he turned toward his younger sister. “Nothing you should concern yourself with, Hazel,” he told her in a gentle tone. “You should go back inside.”
“You should come with me,” she said, trying to gently steer her brother back inside. When he didn’t budge, she tried again, playing the role of younger sister instead of daughter of Pluto. “I don’t want to be in this huge cabin all alone, Nico; it’s scary.” She grinned inwardly when he relaxed and let her lead him back inside. “It’s not good to encourage them, you know,” she told him once they were safely back inside their cabin. “Noticing them, talking to them, it gives them power.”
“How does it give them power?” He picked his blankets up in a ball and dropped them onto his bed. “They exist. Isn’t that power enough?” He plopped on his bed facing his younger sister.
Hazel walked over to his bed and untangled his blankets. She shooed him off the bed while she made it and while she made it she spoke. “They exist, yes, just like the gods exist. The gods exist because they’re still believed in, they’re still talked to by people and worshipped.” Hazel finished making his bed and plopped down on it. Nico plopped down next to her. “What you’re doing, by acknowledging the shadows, you’re believing in them—You’re giving them power. There’s stronger power than just that of a name, Nico.”
“You didn’t see what I did,” he told her.
“I didn’t look. I didn’t need to.”
“Not the shadow, my dream. You didn’t see what I saw. You didn’t see the destruction. I didn’t run outside to start a fight with a shadow, I was going to talk to Rachel. As the Oracle, I need to know if there’s another prophecy.”
“I think you’re jumping a little fast, Nico. Don’t go looking for trouble where there isn’t any just because these past few months have been slow.” Hazel watched Nico’s shoulders sag and saw just how tired her brother looked in that moment. “Though, if it helps you, I’ll go with you tomorrow to talk to Rachel.”
Nico’s shoulders straightened and he hugged Hazel warmly. “Thank you, sis. I know you worry about me, but I swear that I’m not making this up or jumping to conclusions.”
Hazel hugged him back and nodded into his shoulder. “I just don’t want this to turn into something.”
“If it does, I’ll take you with me. I promise.” He pulled out of the hug and slid off the bed. Hazel followed his lead and watched as he turned back his blankets and crawled into bed. She made to walk back to her own bed but he grabbed her hand. “Where are you going?” He lifted up his blankets as an invitation. “Maybe with you by my side, I can sleep soundly.”
Hazel smiled and crawled into bed with her older brother. She tucked herself against him and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. He trapped her legs with his. It felt nice to cuddle up with someone again. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Bianca slept this way. Thinking about his fallen sister made his embrace around Hazel tighten a small bit. “Good night, Nico,” she told him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Hazelnut,” he told her tenderly. He kissed her head gently and fell into a dreamless sleep.
XxX xXx XxX
Hazel followed Nico to the front door of the farmhouse where they heard voices and hooves.
“I know what I saw, Chiron, and I know what I heard. What I spoke in wasn’t English. Or Greek or Latin for that matter. It was gibberish. It was more like what I imagined Rose to sound like when she went Grimdark.” It sounded like Rachel was trying to reason something to Chiron, but neither child could tell what.
“No,” Chiron replied sharply, “you don’t know what it was. You don’t know what you said. And if it really was gibberish like you said, the vision wasn’t of Apollo.”
“But it was of something. Chiron, we cant just sit back and let whatever happen!”
Chiron whinnied and huffed in response, followed by hooves on the floor inside.
“Mr. D, help me out, please! I know you don’t like me, but whoever that vision was from, they have power! That was either a warning or a vision of what’s to come.”
There was a moment of silence followed by a fed up noise from Rachel and the door flew open. Nico barely got out of the way of being stepped on by Rachel. “I hate this! I hate this place!” She screeched. “I’m an Oracle! I bear messages and this is what happens!” She sat down on the bottom step with a thud. “I know I’m not a half-blood, but that doesn’t make me less knowledgeable!” She was a very animated girl. “I know that vision wasn’t from Apollo! But like everything else, it has a source.” Rachel retrieved a sandwich from her bag and took an irritated bite. “Sho glad I wrote that s’upid shing down.” She swallowed her bite and wiped her hands of crumbs before reaching back into her art bag to grab a sheet of lined paper. “You two are the children of Hades and Pluto respectively,” she said with barely a glance behind her. “Wanna help me out with this?”
Hazel sat next to Rachel on the stairs and Nico sat at the base of the stairs at their feet. She handed the note to Hazel who held it out to her brother so they could both read it.
Nico looked up at Rachel from where he sat on the ground. “Don’t kill me for saying this—“ He’d seen her temper in action before. He didn’t like her temper in action. “But this is complete gibberish,” he finished with minor flinching. He expected to be decked on the spot but the blow never came.
“Not completely,” Hazel informed him. “If you look at it in full, it looks like a structured language. There are some words that didn’t get translated. Clues, perhaps.” She smiled widely at Nico and Rachel. “I have a good feeling about it.” She took the paper in her hand and stood up. “It could be encoded, whatever it is!” And just like that, she took off like a dart.
“Hazel!” Nico shouted after her, climbing to his feet. “Where are you going!” All he could hear were her giggles. He slowly turned toward Rachel. “What was that in there?” he asked her. “I know it’s none of my business, but between this and the ominous dream I had last night, I just know something is going on.”
Rachel sighed and got to her feet as well. “I had an Oracle moment last night and I don’t know what I even said. It all came out garbled. I was able to get it on paper as best as I could, but I don’t know how legible it will be after it’s uncoded.” She sighed deeply and took his hand in hers. “And what of this dream you had last night, Nico? Tell me,” she prompted Nico, knowing he wouldn’t open up without encouragement.
“It had me tossing and turning. I saw flashes of Bianca and other things. I witnessed somebody get pulled into darkness. I flew awake because I could feel myself getting wrapped in darkness. I was fighting it but it was freezing and I felt like the oxygen was being pulled from my body. I thrashed around in bed so much that fell off in a heap of blankets. I rushed outside to find you afterward but all I saw outside were shadows. They were in droves and swarms. Hazel led me back to bed and we curled up together. I slept dreamlessly after that, but...” Nico balled the hand that wasn’t being held by Rachel into a fist. “There’s something going on, I just know it. Somebody gave you that vision and prophecy just like somebody gave me that dream and the feelings of fear and dread that followed.”
“The darkness I saw was suffocating too, you know,” Rachel told him. “My vision, it was nothing but darkness. Darkness and power. Whoever gave us those visions was strong.”
Nico gazed toward the cabins, in the direction that Hazel ran off. “You know, whoever those were from, they’re probably not safe. As an Oracle of Delphi, you should only be getting visions from Apollo. It’s almost like whatever that was broke into the source flow.”
Rachel gaped at him. “Are you trying to tell me that whoever gave us those dreams had to hack into Olympus to do so?” She almost couldn’t believe her ears.
“Something like that,” he said, gaze trailing toward the lake. “Whatever it was had to be at least half-blood to get in, whether that’s camp or Olympus.”
XxX xXx XxX
It didn’t take Nico long to locate his sister when he and Elizabeth finally made their way to down to the cabins. They found her with Leo and Annabeth, trying to make sense of the puzzle.
“I’m telling you, it looks grimdark,” Leo insisted to Annabeth.
“And I might agree, had I knowledge of what you speak of,” she retorted without missing a beat. “You two speak of things that I’ve never even heard of.”
“That’s because it is part of a webcomic called Homestuck—” Off to the side, Hazel groaned. “It’s an online webcomic. I actually have some grimdark panels hanging up in the cabin.”
Rachel locked eyes with him. “Do you want me to grab them?”
“Not important,” he told her. Hazel sat down at the table, rather relieved. “Have you heard of H.P Lovecraft?” Leo asked Annabeth.
“Of course. He was legacy of Nyx and a son of Hades before the Big Three made their pact not to have any more children.”
“He was?” Hazel asked excitedly. “That shines a new light on his work.”
“So that means you know of the old ones, yes?” Leo asked, a new spark in his eyes.
“The Great Old Ones? Yes. They’re messengers for Nyx. She and her descendants can speak with them directly but they also speak prophecies on her behalf.”
Nico and Rachel looked at each other. “Any idea how to translate it?” Nico asked.
Leo shook his head. “I doubt anybody here speaks Horrorterror.”