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The ghost appears for the first time while Piper’s in her room on the Argo II. Everyone else is on the deck—Jason and Percy are sparring, which Piper thinks is an awful idea, but everyone else wanted to watch. It’s nice in her room alone, though, rocking waves outside her window. Leo really outdid himself.
She’s writing—a little story she’s got going on, been thinking about it for a while. Stuck in her head like a worm. She has to get it down on paper, or she’ll never stop thinking about it. She sprawls out further on her bed, resting her head in her palms as she rests her eyes for a moment, stinging with overuse, and—
“Damn.”
Piper startles, shrieking as she scrambles to sit up, falling off the bed and onto the floor, on her back. She huffs a breath out, cringing as she regains her bearings, squinting an eye open.
There’s a kid on her bed.
They have fluffy, curly hair, short, but in a way that suggests it’s being grown out, pale olive-toned skin, and doe shaped honey black eyes—the kind of ethereal beauty Piper would recall for days after seeing them. She can’t place how old they are, and their appearance flickers with every blink she takes—she thinks she spots star-shaped clips in their hair, and necklaces winding their neck, and rings along their fingers resting on the edge of the mattress, balancing them as they peer down at her, eyes wide.
“Are you… okay?” They ask hesitantly. Their voice curls into tones of an accent that Piper can just barely place.
Piper stares for a long moment more before realizing that there is, in fact, a strange child who is too perfect-looking to be human, especially considering the non-weather appropriate clothing they have on (a fluffy brown aviator jacket and jeans, if you were wondering), and is currently in her bedroom. She quickly gets to her feet, grabbing Katoptris and pointing it at the kid.
“Who are you? How did you get here?”
The kid looks surprised for half a second before frowning, leaning backwards, away from the blade at their throat. “Um, you know that thing won’t work on me, right?”
Piper glances down at ‘that thing’—rude—then back up at the kid. “And why would that be? You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m a ghost.” The kid replies plainly, like that’s such a normal thing to say. They then wrinkle their nose. “I think so, at least.”
“You think so?”
“Well, I’ve sort of been the same age for… a year-ish, so I think that’s my evidence.” They shrug—then, hastily, they add, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“Why are you here?” Piper asks hesitantly, lowering Katoptris slightly, still tight in her hands. “Actually, wait—I thought souls could just walk out of the Underworld? Because the Doors of Death are open? Why are you not alive?”
The kid sighs, slipping their legs off the bed to kick them absently, shifting as if to give her space to sit. Piper eyes the space for a moment before deciding to sit down, Katoptris in her lap. How bad can a ghost be?
“I’m, uh… what’s the word? Mania. I’m stuck on the land unless I give up the things tying me to the world.” They sound a bit bitter as they say it, but Piper decides to dwell on the word instead—now, where has she heard that before…?
“Like—Beryl?” She blurts out.
She pauses, and is about to rephrase what she means—after all, this kid won’t know who that is, but—“Don’t compare me to Jason’s mom,” paired with another wrinkle of their nose, expression regal and haughty, a bit like Reyna and Jason (sometimes) if she thinks too hard about it.
“How do you know Jason?”
“Not to say I’ve been stalking you lot, but I’ve… kind of been stalking. Not much else to do on this ship.” They tilt their head. “Oh, I knew him when I was alive.”
“...okay.”
“I don’t think he remembers me.” They look to the side. “I asked Hazel to mention me, and—no reaction.”
“Hazel can see you?”
They blink, a bit wide-eyed. “I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
Piper bites her lip for a moment, chewing as she thinks. She wants to push on that—like digging a thumb into the bruise of a peach—but she doesn’t want to scare the kid off. Sue her, she’s curious.
“So… what’s your name?”
Their reply is quick as a whip. “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather-boy?”
Piper stares blankly. “Seriously?”
“Sorry. Habit.” They laugh, a bit nervously—she likes how the carefreeness of a chuckle looks on their face, though—followed by a sigh and staring into space. Piper recognizes that expression, knows it intimately—when you take a moment to wonder what the fuck you just said. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone you saw me.”
Piper stares the kid down.
“…if you promise not to tell anyone aside from Hazel that you saw me.” They amend.
“Mm. I can take that. You have a deal.”
The kid hums. “It’s Nico.”
“Huh.” Pretty unassuming name for a ghost—though, Piper supposes a ghost can technically be named anything—and the kid, Nico, is kind of unassuming-looking anyway.
“Yeah.” They click their tongue, rapping nails against their knee. Can something incorporeal touch itself? Food for thought.
“So…” Piper positions herself to lie hanging over the edge, stomach-up, and letting herself slowly slide off the mattress to the floor. “What makes you a mania, exactly?”
Nico looks down at her strangely. “I just explained what a mania was.”
“I mean—yeah.” Her shoulders thunk painfully to the floor; Piper slowly starfishes over the ground. “Why are you one though?”
Nico studies her for a long, long minute before responding. “If I tell you, you’re gonna blab.”
She feels a bit offended by that. “Uh—you don’t even know me! How do you know I’m gonna blab, huh?”
“You seem like that type.” They say matter-of-factly.
She rolls her eyes. “Well, I can keep a secret.”
Nico wrinkles their nose. “Um… gods—am I about to tell my entire life story to a stranger?”
“I’m not that much of a stranger if you’ve been stalking the Argo II.”
“I’m not stalking!”
“You literally said stalking. Your own words, dude. Also, you clearly don’t socialize very much—”
“What does that mean?”
“—so this’ll be like practice!”
They look at her flatly. “You just want gossip.”
“I’m not like those girls!” Piper gags. “I don’t gossip.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah—you discuss, right?”
“Gossip implies maliciousness!”
“Okay—being nosy! You’re interested! Is that better wording?”
Piper huffs. “Yes, it is. Because they’re different things.”
Nico sighs, and launches into a story wrapped in a story of all their remaining earthly matters, which is a strange phrase to apply to what looks like a 13-year-old—they blamed a kid for their sister’s death, and never got to apologize—they say then there’s Hazel without any elaboration—skirt slightly around the topic of Reyna and Jason—then begins talking about their (unrequited? Maybe they’re just insecure? Who knows) adoration for a child of Apollo. All in all, frustratingly vague.
“And, well—Will’s just, he’s—I feel like I have to apologize—”
“Wait.”
Nico blinks, wide-eyed, as she reaches up, trying to settle a hand on their knee, then pulls away upon her remembrance that touching in fact is not an option right now, feeling cold where her hands went through their body. “Wait, waitwaitwait—Will? Like—Will Solace? That child of Apollo?”
Nico is stunned into silence, blue-screening for a long moment before stammering. “How’d you—what—I—I have to go.”
“Ah—wait, Nico—”
She dives forward, then starfishes in the wake of nothingness. Her foot gets caught underneath the bed. The ghost is gone as soon as she glances up.