𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, ᵃᵖᵒˡˡᵒ

:✼✿ Please don't ever become a stranger

"Hold still," Grover told him. "Here, eat some ambrosia while I clean that out."

He winced as he dressed the wound, but anyone could see that the ambrosia square helped. Between that and the magic salve Grover used, his shoulder would be good as new within a couple of minutes.

Nico rummaged through his own bag, which the Hunters had apparently packed for him, Nico laid out a bunch of figurines in the snow—little battle replicas of Greek gods and heroes. She recognized Zeus with a lightning bolt, Ares with a spear, and Apollo with his sun chariot.

Ahalya never really paid attention, but right now even at the look of the sun god made her stomach plummet, as if her mind was warning her against something very unbecoming.

Her body burned like a fire was licking her soul all alone and her heart was pierced with a thousand poisonous broken glasses.

Ahalya professed that she was to die right here and all, from the mention of a god, how pathetic was that but fortunately, Percy's voice created an anchor for her to come back to reality "Big collection," he said.

Nico grinned. "I've got almost all of them, plus their holographic cards! Well, except for a few really rare ones."

"You've been playing this game a long time?"

"Just this year. Before that..." He knit his eyebrows.

"What?" the son of Poseidon asked.

That was the thing about Nico and Bianca, somehow life for them one year ago was always foggy, like it was lost in a murky pond.

"I forget. That's weird."

He looked unsettled, but it didn't last long. "Hey, can I see that sword you were using?" Percy showed him Riptide and explained how it turned from a pen into a sword just by uncapping it.

"Cool! Does it ever run out of ink?"

"Um, well, I don't actually write with it."

"Are you really the son of Poseidon?"

"Well, yeah."

"Can you surf really well, then?"

Percy looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.

"Jeez, Nico," he said. "I've never really tried."

He went on asking questions. Did Percy fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (Percy looked like he was struggling with the decision to not to strangle him) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, even Ahalya thought that Nico was in harm's way).

Though it was sweet of Percy to even go on with all the questions, Ahalya knew how hard it was to fulfil Nico's innocent curiosity. She held the boy so close to her heart that it was kind of scary even though they had known each other for not long. It was something in the boy that was so special.

At least very special to her.

Ahalya figured that any second Nico was going to ask Percy how many hit points he had, and he'd lose his cool completely, but luckily for everyone at that very minute, Nico thought that he had enough of these answers and ran off somewhere deep in the camp.

And therefore, there it came again, the awkwardness had settled in like an uninvited guest. Truth to be told Ahalya was actually quite bad at starting conversations (a problem right now) and taking social cues on time (she was probably missing one right now). God, this was getting embarrassing, maybe she should get up from here an... "How do you know?" came the voice of Percy Jackson who was sitting just on the opposite side and was kinda staring at her very intensely.