Popular misconception, really, that children of Hades prefer the company of the dead. No, thanks. He prefers the company of the vibrantly alive. And a quasi-gothic aesthetic doesn’t have to be macabre. He just prefers it that way.
The truth is, ghosts find him. They find you, too - you just don’t know it. Nico’s used to ignoring them. There’s too many shades drifting through the world, and he can’t help them.
He listens to the ones that’re more corporeal sometimes, like the Hurley sisters in Sunset Falls. Ghosts get lonely too. He only really makes an effort when the shade stands out.
Like there’s this one little blue shade in Central City that he always sees when he’s getting a hot dog from the good food truck. It hangs out in the old warehouse with the half-busted windows.
It’s not very tall.
Nico knows they died young, and that’s… that’s a whole mess. Ghosts usually linger in important places. Where they lived. Where they died. Nothing good happens to a kid in an abandoned warehouse.
He thinks about the shade a lot. It keeps him up at night. It woke him up this morning with the horrible thought that the kid was going to spend another Christmas there.
That’s stupid, he’s chided himself all day long at school. He doesn’t know what holidays the shade celebrated. This isn’t his problem, as he shelled out the money for a twelve pack of Mountain Dew and four Happy Meals.
Will would be so mad about how much power he’s using without telling anyone, Nico thinks as he looks at the hole he’s ripped open in the floor of the warehouse’s basement. Well, he couldn’t dig a grave through the foundation without a lot of zombies, so he made it work by calling up a horseshoe of huge, jagged rocks to crack the ground apart. Their slick black surfaces catch the flickering green firelight licking up through the spiderweb of cracks in the foundation. Nico turns off the flashlight on his phone.
He sits at the foot of the grave - the tallest rock is opposite him, doing a good impression of an obelisk - and begins to chant in Ancient Greek with the solemnity of a priest. The sodas are emptied into the pit with a sense of ceremony, and the fizz grows louder when the Mickey D’s splashes in. In no time at all, the hole is filled with roiling, murky green liquid. The food colouring is almost fluorescent in the green firelight.
The skittering sounds of rodents falls away into deafening silence. Vaguely humanoid shapes drift into the warehouse, all seeming intent on the green pool.
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Popular misconception, really, that children of Hades prefer the company of the dead. No, thanks. He prefers the company of the vibrantly alive. And a quasi-gothic aesthetic doesn’t have to be macabre. He just prefers it that way.
The truth is, ghosts find him. They find you, too - you just don’t know it. Nico’s used to ignoring them. There’s too many shades drifting through the world, and he can’t help them.
He listens to the ones that’re more corporeal sometimes, like the Hurley sisters in Sunset Falls. Ghosts get lonely too. He only really makes an effort when the shade stands out.
Like there’s this one little blue shade in Central City that he always sees when he’s getting a hot dog from the good food truck. It hangs out in the old warehouse with the half-busted windows.
It’s not very tall.
Nico knows they died young, and that’s… that’s a whole mess. Ghosts usually linger in important places. Where they lived. Where they died. Nothing good happens to a kid in an abandoned warehouse.
He thinks about the shade a lot. It keeps him up at night. It woke him up this morning with the horrible thought that the kid was going to spend another Christmas there.
That’s stupid, he’s chided himself all day long at school. He doesn’t know what holidays the shade celebrated. This isn’t his problem, as he shelled out the money for a twelve pack of Mountain Dew and four Happy Meals.
Will would be so mad about how much power he’s using without telling anyone, Nico thinks as he looks at the hole he’s ripped open in the floor of the warehouse’s basement. Well, he couldn’t dig a grave through the foundation without a lot of zombies, so he made it work by calling up a horseshoe of huge, jagged rocks to crack the ground apart. Their slick black surfaces catch the flickering green firelight licking up through the spiderweb of cracks in the foundation. Nico turns off the flashlight on his phone.
He sits at the foot of the grave - the tallest rock is opposite him, doing a good impression of an obelisk - and begins to chant in Ancient Greek with the solemnity of a priest. The sodas are emptied into the pit with a sense of ceremony, and the fizz grows louder when the Mickey D’s splashes in. In no time at all, the hole is filled with roiling, murky green liquid. The food colouring is almost fluorescent in the green firelight.
The skittering sounds of rodents falls away into deafening silence. Vaguely humanoid shapes drift into the warehouse, all seeming intent on the green pool.