Inhabited by a god

Chapter five

"Dios, this place is fucking cold!"

Nico walked up a steep, snow-covered mountain. It had been at least a few days of shadow-travelling to get to the mountain in Himalaya, of all places. In that time the two had spoken every waking moment. Anubis had told him about his family, about his mother, his adoptive father, and of course his real father (suddenly, Nico was kinda happy that Hades was his father). Nico had confided in him about his feelings concerning his sexuality. It was actually refreshing when the god muttered something about him never understanding the big deal with someone being romantically involved with the same gender, seeing as the gods themselves did it frequently.

Anubis chuckled in his mind. "I didn't know you had such a foul mouth."

Nico rolled his eyes, trudging forward through the snow. He would need a warm shower after this one.

"Where is this lichen, anyway?"

Anubis hummed in thought. "Uh-"

Nico frowned. "Just spit it out, already!"

"Um, it's at the summit."

The son of Hades gazed upwards at the peak hundreds of meters above him. Shit-fuck. "Y'know, I really hate you sometimes..."

They chatted idly as Nico climbed the mountain. He had to sit down at some point, chowing down on some food.

Nico was rambling about how the war against Gaea had ended, and his budding friendship with Will. His smile faded somewhat as his thoughts settled on the blond.

"Are you worried about him?" Anubis questioned.

Nico thought it over. He was surprised to realise that he hadn't thought about Will once since he left camp. He guessed it was the fact that he was distraught about Anubis' voice suddenly disappearing.

"I- I dunno... I haven't really thought about him that much after this whole thing started." He gestured vaguely in the air, hoping that Anubis would get it.

"Ah, I see," Anubis muttered. "I suppose this is rather time and thought consuming." The god was quiet for a second, seemingly hesitant to say whatever he was about to say. "I'm sorry that you weren't able to spend more time with him after things settled down after Gaea."

Nico paused at that. Sure, he'd wanted to spend more time with Will, but he was way too restless to settle down at camp for the time being, even after Gaea had been defeated. "You don't have to apologise... I owe you my life, after all." He said it with an honest smile.

Anubis was silent for a while after that, but his presence felt warm in the back of his head.

As he walked, Nico couldn't shake Will from his thoughts. He felt guilty about just leaving like he did, with no explanation or anything. "Ugh, it sucks that I can't talk to him about any of this."

"I apologise for that," Anubis muttered. "The fewer that know about this, the better."

Nico raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Well, if the information about me inhabiting your body gets into the wrong hands, then you would definitely be in danger," Anubis explained. "There will be those that want to capture you, to either torture you for information or keep you, and therefore me, out of commission. And those that would just straight out kill you, to keep me away from this plane of existence for a while." Anubis explained all this in a way that made it seem like this was the most common-place thing to ever occur on earth.