After Nico woke up, gasping and panting and shaking, but thankfully not screaming, he stood and fumbled for the door. His room was suffocating and he had to find Hazel because if she didn't already know she had to now.
When he was half way there, about to turn down the hall and run to his half sister's room, the girl he was looking for came stumbling out. Upon seeing Nico, she ran to him, he taking her hands as they were shaking as bad as his. He pushed her hair behind her ears and shushed her. "Hazel what's wrong?"
"The- I had- a dream... A dream about you and me and father and something- something else, Nico it was planning for our deaths. And Father said nothing to us!"
"I know, I had the dream too." He squeezed her hands to comfort both Hazel and himself as he thought of the end of his dream.
"Did Father tell you anything? Like- like directly to you?" He asked quickly, wanting to know if Hazel had some sort of warning for him.
"N-no, no it just ended with the creature leaving. It was...weird...it was tall and...and it looked like..."
"Bianca?"
"Sammy."
They spoke at the same time. Then met each other's wide eyes with identical ones.
"You saw something different than me?" They spoke at the same pace and nodded.
"How did it look like Sammy?" Nico asked, and Hazel quickly explained that it was tall and had curly black hair. There was no color on it other than black and white, but Hazel could tell it was male.
"And...and Bianca?" She asked softly as Nico nodded, running a hand through his hair as he spoke in an emotionless voice.
"The thing was only a little taller than me, like if she had stayed her hight from when I last saw her and I've grown. The hair wasn't long, it was just shaggy over her head, not shoulder length. She had head surgery when I was little and I only saw her after her hair had sort of grown back. It looked like that."
Hazel nodded and took his hand as suddenly a feeling made Nico turn. As he turned he faced a hazed and blurry circle, an Iris message, not focused on anything. There was distinct tapping. Like finger on metal.
Tap tap tap
Tap-pause-tap-pause-tap-pause
Tap tap tap
"Leo's back." Nico said, and pulled his sister to the main deck.
~
Leo's been in tough situations before. He's fallen off cliffs, fought ice ladies, rebuilt metal dragons into giant flying ships, and broke a vending machine while trying to get a bag of Demeter's Fresh Baked Salt&Vinigar Corn Chips.
Hey. He was hungry. Don't get that look, you and him both know you've done things you're not proud of in the name of vending machine justice.
But so far, the most tiring thing he's ever done is go up the steepest hill in Italy lugging a four-trillion pound sled behind him as he bled out his entire life force into the long, swaying grass.
Even though there was a bit of an exageration in that, he was infact bleeding from sword swipes above his eye and down his left calf, with bloodied and bruised knuckles. Other than that, it was easy.
Leo laughed to himself at that.
Stupid Kakos with his stupid fire breath. "I'll burn you alive!" he says, "Burn the heart out of you." he says. Psh. That guy'd sooner make out with Khione than figure out real fire breathing.
