Chapter Text
The wind in the Fields of Asphodel didn't blow—it dragged. Like a sigh of trust from a thousand lungs, carrying with it the smell of wet earth and charred bones. Nico walked among the wandering souls, his bare feet sinking into the ash that covered the ground. He didn't feel cold. Or hot. Just the constant emptiness that had been in his chest for as long as he could remember. Damon trotted beside him, his dry ribs clinking like broken china cups. The skeletal dog was his only loyal companion, if "loyal" was the right word. Hades had put him there to watch over him, not out of affection. Nico knew that. He knew a lot of things, after all, souls whispered secrets even when he didn't ask them to.
"Where are you going, little prince?" a voice scorched by fire hissed to his right.
Nico turned. It was Helena, a soul with a face melted like wax. She had died in a fire and now wandered the fields, asking everyone where her son was.
"Nowhere," Nico replied, avoiding her lidless eyes.
"No one goes anywhere here," she laughed, a damp, sorrowful sound. "Except you. You’re different."
Nico clenched his fists. Different. That word haunted him more than the groans of Tartarus. He leaned over the River Styx, staring at his reflection in the black water. Dark hair, eyes deep as craters, skin too pale to be alive… yet not dead enough to be a ghost. He reached out, touching his face, feeling the softness of his skin and searching for traces of his mother. He didn’t look like her, but he didn’t fully resemble his father either.
Tired of seeking signs where none existed, he watched Daemon’s skeleton chase a bone across the green fields of asphodel, one hand resting on his knee.
Boredom ran so deep within him that he thought it was the only feeling he could muster.
His days were all the same.
All silent.
He explored and explored. He fulfilled his duties of guiding unruly incoming spirits and made a habit of conversing with them. Through them, he learned about the world above.
The world above, or the surface.
A world where the living belonged, and he did not, for he was dead. Nico had always been dead.
Born that way, or so he’d been told. He didn’t understand how a dead thing could grow or feel anything beyond the void that pulled him toward passage. But Nico felt. Nico had been born curious and voracious. With a hunger and thirst to live and learn, his father’s realm seemed vast, nearly infinite. That’s what he’d believed as a child. With chubby, wobbly legs, he’d had Valkyries and Furies as nannies. Because his parents couldn’t stand him, and his mother wanted nothing to do with him. So his small hand reached out to explore and taste every possible texture. A giant hellhound accompanied him everywhere at his father’s command, keeping him safe and guarded. Though no one dared approach the prince of darkness.
In his solitude, Nico discovered his powers: summoning and attracting spirits, making them his friends. Through them, he learned what it meant to be alive. His father’s booming voice echoed across the fields like thunder. Daemon’s tiny skull snapped free from the rest of his body, clattering lifelessly to the ground. The wandering souls around him vanished. The earth trembled.
His father was looking for him.
He always was. It was almost funny how the great Hades insisted on keeping him under his cloak at all times, yet couldn’t stand him for more than five minutes.
Nico felt trapped in a cage of gemstones, knowing his father held the key but would never free him. The old god was lonely, grumpy, and kept a tight leash. He hated Nico’s explorations, scolding and punishing him for his mischief and insolence.
Resigned, Nico stood and wandered slowly, his large brown eyes scanning the endless expanse. He liked the souls here because he identified with them. They were lost, irrelevant, insignificant.
He wasn’t like his half-sister, the demigod his father hailed as a heroine. Bianca, who had been the pride of his existence until she vowed herself to Artemis and became her hunter. Eternal youth, eternal devotion to the goddess. Bianca, who had all the love of Hades and Persephone, yet still harbored such hatred for him.
.🔱.
His father’s reddish-brown gaze seemed especially large and fiery. Hatred sparkled in his eyes, his voice trembling. The same lecture, again.
If Nico earned a drachma for every time he heard that same rant…
"Are you even listening to me, you insolent boy?"
"Every word, my lord. How could I not hear you? I think even Mount Olympus can hear you from here."
The wrong thing to say. His father was no fan of Olympus or his brothers—quite the opposite. Nico was grateful there were no family reunions; keeping those three in the same room without causing an apocalypse would be stressful.
Hades rubbed his face, looking terribly weary. Boredom gave way to guilt, and Nico felt as small as a grain of sand.
He wished to shrink and disappear when that gaze turned on him. Disappointment was so clear, so pristine in his father’s eyes—mirroring his own. Nico obeyed when ordered to vanish. All he truly wanted, he thought to himself as he lay in bed, was to stop existing.
He heard distant laughter, familiar. Like tiny bells, it was so shrill he covered his ears, bracing for what would come. The water in his basin trembled, rippling with the vibration of that voice. Nico groaned, wishing he could be as strong as his father to banish her. To expel her from his thoughts.
"Why are you upset, little brother?" Bianca appeared without ceremony, her hair braided over her shoulder, a bow on her back. "You look sad."
Her voice sounded sweet as she tilted her head, watching him with almond-shaped eyes so similar to his own. He wanted to believe in the kindness in her tone, yearned to be comforted by her.
But Nico knew better.
She began to laugh, delighted by his sorrow. Just like her mother, who reveled in his misery. Persephone had once plucked a tear from his cheek and stored it in a dull orb that shimmered like a thousand stars. She’d smiled in that strange, unsettling way, staring at him as if he were the ruin of her existence, explaining softly how she’d use that "special ingredient" in her garden.
"Nothing purer than a tear born of sorrow—it works wonders for my winter flowers," she’d hummed, shaking the orb gently. Her beloved daughter wore the same expression of contentment.
Bianca entered and left, her mission complete. To torment his life. Or rather, his existence. Because Nico didn’t know if he could call himself alive. This was anything but life.