The Ghosts of Millennia

Nico Gets All Broody Again

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Nico reflects on the Wizard Genocide. Thalia arrives for the Winter Solstice meeting.

BEGINNING NOTES

Chapter Rating: General Audiences
Content Warning: Cursing
Word Count: 3875

I'm going to C2E2 (three-day pass!) and I've spent most of today getting my Bianca di Angelo cosplay together and it's going to look awesome. Then I helped my friend Brian who's going with me find a sword for his Jason cosplay, and that took like three hours but we found one!

Moral of the story: if you're going to C2E2 lemme know so we can meet up! Also, cosplay is hard.

And all the characters are owned by J.K. Rowling, or Rick Riordan.

Credits at the end.

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One. Now two.

The nights were far too long, and each one stretched longer than the last. Each day the sun set faster and rose at a crawling pace. Each night, the darkness got thicker until it was tangible, pulling at the skin, slicing the lips, twisting the stomach until she begged for mercy. The darkness sapped the moisture from her skin, leaving a mummy in its wake. Hot, biting tears fought to be released with no such catharsis. Tears didn't help the first time, why should they help the second?

Did curses truly exist? Not the magical kind, the karmic. Did the universe choose at random who to elevate and who to damn? Could it push the hands of time? Could it pluck thoughts from the head or whisper them into the brain? Did it plant love and longing, anger and hatred, happiness and disgust? Did it choose at random who should live and who should die, and who should be left behind to brave the ever-growing night?

In Alice and Wonderland, the Mad Hatter insulted Time and was stuck at three o'clock in the afternoon every day until Time could forgive him. He was forced to sit at his tea table and go through the motions of tea time again and again, moving from place setting to place setting as the food ran out and tea got cold. His life was a merry-go-round; what he once enjoyed was now a prison.

Was Time offended, accidentally angered somehow? Did Time slow the clock each midnight, turning the bed into a merry-go-round, the sheets a prison? Did it whisper these thoughts and feelings out of spite? Did it stop up the eyes to keep the tears from flowing? Did it curse her?

She tried to step out of her bed like she did every night, but her feet wouldn't budge. Why should they? What was the point of the merry-go-round? Classes, Quidditch, more classes, more Quidditch. With Umbridge gone, the D.A. was dead. With the exchange program over Annabeth was gone, and the crushing loneliness had set in again. Marietta left her, saying she couldn't take the crying anymore, saying she'd come back when she grew up and that it was for her own good. As if she did it to spite her! Didn't she know how much she wished she could stop? How many Galleons she'd pay to let it all pass?

Her classes meant nothing, Quidditch meant nothing, everything meant nothing. The sun wasn't warm anymore, food tasted bland, the lake no longer sparkled, books no longer entertained her, homework wasn't painful, taunts didn't hurt her... all she ever felt anymore was gray. Just gray. A dark gray that turned to black each time she fell into that prison of a bed.

Would she give up Cedric to go back to the carefree girl whose thoughts were dominated by Quidditch stats and O.W.L.'s? Could she? He made her so happy, he colored the world, turned everything vibrant and glowing. The gray was even more noticeable now because of it. And Harry, so different from Cedric, and yet a shining glimmer of hope to pull her out of this darkness. He lowered a rope for her and reached out his hand, pushing her higher and higher until she could finally see the occasional pale blues and yellows. As she reached up to grab it, Time pulled him away and let her fall yet again.