Butterflies

Chapter 17

"Piper, dear gods, could you stop humming "The Wizard of Oz"?" Will asked with a drone, falling back a step to address her.

"Oh shut your face, Will. You're just jealous because I can sing and you can't." Piper stuck her tongue out at Will's annoyed face and skipped the next step.

Nico snorted. "Yeah, but so can I, Piper my dear, and I want you to shut it as well." He turned around and gave Will wink before meeting her scowl with his own smirk. "Just because this yellow tinted brick road happens to lead us to our next destination does not make you Dorthy."

Piper scrunched her nose and flicked a braid off her shoulder. "Ugh, who would want to be Dorthy. Those shoes are exactly the kind of thing my mother would wear and hence," she gestured at herself, "I would not wear it."

Jason grinned and looped an arm around her sholders, pulling her closer and kissing the top of her head as they walked. "I love you, Piper," he said, dropping his arm around her waist and then sliding his hand into hers as she prompted. She just beamed with bright eyes and bright teeth.

"No need to flaunt your romance!" Cecil yelled from a couple yards in front of them. "Not all of us actually need to hear your perfect relationship status you know!" He just got a punch in the arm from Lou Ellen in response. As they started bickering between themselves, Reyna fell in step with Nico and started a conversation.

"So no skeleton horses to help us travel?" she asked politely, not taking her eyes off the path in front of her.

Nico furrowed his brow and glanced at her sideways. "Do you want to ride a skeleton horse?" he asked incredulously.

Reyna just laughed. "I guess not, but the last trip I took with you did not require this much walking. I figured you might have tried shadow traveling all of us with that stubbornness of yours to not be outside for more than necessary."

"NO SHADOW TRAVELING," came the voice of Will, adamant and flustered. He scrambled quickly to Nico's other side and said quickly, "Don't even think about it di Angelo, doctor's orders."

Nico glanced over at him and smiled humorously. "I wouldn't dare, doctor," he replied, gaze moving back to the road in front of him. He assumed Will didn't respond due to the choking sound he made and the stumble of his steps, but he didn't put much thought into why.

Reyna just watched them with raised eyebrows and met Nico's eyes after a few seconds. The conversation between their gazes went like this:

Nico: He's a dork.

Reyna: I can see that.

And they promptly burst out laughing.

The energy of the group stayed like that, Jason and Piper enjoying each others presence and occasionally making small talk about how much better the prophecy trips were as an actual couple. Cecil and Lou Ellen bickering with each other comfortably and occasionally just walking next to each other without needing anything to be said. Reyna made conversation with Nico on the plans of the trip while Will listened in, asking his own questions every so often and applying his own knowledge to the problems they came up with. It was calm for a while.

But that's the thing with being a demigod. It's not calm. If it is calm, that means something is wrong and you're probably going to be attacked. The seven had all forgotten that.

So when the death spirits came and attacked them, almost no one was prepared.

It was only Nico, a child of death who was constantly armed and alert, who managed to have weapon ready by the time the spirits were upon them.