Waves and Bones (A Nico di Angelo love story)

The Calm Before The Storm

"Umm, I'll let him know whenever I wake up...?" I questioned unsure of what he meant by all this.

"Oh also if you get a chance tell Nico I want him to visit soon and it's of the utmost importance...oh and to Iris message me as soon as he's back in his cabin. You should be waking up soon so I will wish you well and I hope I won't see you back here again for many years. Oh yes! One last thing watch out for Hera she's-" he was cut off by my eyes being flooded by a bright shining white light.

I coughed half my lungs up as I jumped up right in the infirmary bed water flowing out of my mouth. My hair dried in my natural waves around my face and clothes smelling of stale salt water. I saw Percy asleep with Annabeth on his lap reading. A slight bit of drool rolled down the left side of his bottom lip with Annabeth's head resting on his right shoulder. They were adorable.

I didn't even notice my bed dip and Nico sit beside me till I felt his hand on my forehead with worry all over his face.

"Never do that again. You scared the crap out of me Soph. I thought I'd lost you." He stated before embracing me in a hug which was extremely unusual for Nico. Actually, everything he's been doing since he came back as been unusual maybe Hades was right...maybe our sadness was caused by not being around each other for so long...so long these behavioural changes are all figments of my imagination because we'd been apart so long...yeah that had to be it.

"Nice to see I'm loved and here I thought we were just friends for the practise skills" I laughed before becoming serious. "Nico. I just had an interesting conversation with your dad" His once smug face dropped into one of shire anger.

Before he could explode with rage I spilt my guts. Every piece of information I could remember that Hades had told me, I just regurgitated everything to try keep him from exploding. It worked. He looked less mad once I told him his dad didn't hate him just not enough for him to actually not look like he wanted to kill something.

"I got to go message, my dad. I'll be right back. Stay in bed. I was told you'd a slight case of hyperthermia from the water being so cold. Stay warm I'll be right back " Nico insisted before kissing my forehead and running out of the infirmary. Leaving me alone with both complete silence and my dangerously overactive imagination. Never a good idea.

I kept thinking of what the bond between me and Nico could possibly be. Nothing about it made sense. We were just friends. Nothing was between us. He wasn't my protector we couldn't possibly have an empathy link with him the way Percy did with Grover. Frustrated with my lack of answers I began to think of what type of creature Hades was describing in his warning.

I'd read legends about stone sprites which were supposed to be The Single most dangerous sprite to ever exist. These sprites are described to be like corpses, they're cold to the touch. NEVER TOUCH A STONE SPRITE! Their touch is like ice, and slowly freezes it's victim to death. If you see a stone sprite my only advice is to turn and walk the other way. I'd never actually heard of one being encountered in person which lead me to believes they're completely fictional. An old wives tale to scare children into not roaming off. I could be wrong. I'll admit that. There aren't many stone based creatures. Unleash...Stone is being used as a metaphor which I doubt...or perhaps the stones or rock is actually just a representation of earth...in which case...he couldn't possibly mean Gaea...no that'd be impossible I saw her explode to ashes with my own eye...that couldn't have been an illusion. The possibilities of what lay ahead for me and Nico would continue to wreck my head.

"Soph! Omg, you're alive. Thank Hades!" Percy yelled bringing me back to earth from my daydream. He jumped from his chair knocking Annabeth to the floor with a loud thump. The daughter of Athena was not amused at my brother's stupidity but his face was priceless. His cheeks turned bright red, it looked as though he'd be lying out in the sun for days with no suncream. His eyes held the most guilty expression I'd ever seen as he reached out his hand to help Annabeth up off the floor. "Sorry."