Fate Withstands

Chapter 21

Nico wasn't sure how long he had been fighting through Tartarus when he came face to face with the twin giants. It had felt like weeks, like years, felt like his whole life he had been running and fighting and hiding. No sleep. He never had allowed himself to sleep.

When you were in Tartarus, you either kept moving or you died. Only the dead could rest.

He was exhausted, only the Phlegethon's fiery taste keeping him awake. When he met those giants, it took all he had to not fall over. When they attacked, he had no chance.

And that's how Nico ended up in a bronze jar, weapons useless on trying to escape. The air was stiff, he could barely breathe, his muscles ached and burned as they were finally put to rest.

He didn't have many options. Instead, he had pomegranate seeds in his pocket and the ability to go into a death trance. He had never tried it before, but Hades had told him about it just incase of the worst.

So despite the pain and exhaustion, Nico let himself fall into the most painful of his abilities. The death trance shut down whatever it could in his body, made it so he barely stayed alive. Just like the Fields, he sat not fully knowing what was life and death.

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Nico broke out of his death trance after falling from the jar, his head smacking against the floor. He let out a soft groan, everything in him feeling as if he was still sinking in the River Phlegethon. His muscles still burned, his head and stomach ached, all his energy seemed to have been sucked out of him. But when he heard the sounds of battle, his instincts from Tartarus caused him to start to crawl.

Keep moving. The pit seemed to whisper in his ears. Don't stop. Stop and you die.

Never stop.

A girl he didn't know swooped in and pulled him to the far wall. He didn't have the energy to fight nor did he feel as if he should. She was standing over him, weapon in hand, protecting him from whatever the danger was.

She was pretty, and Nico might have liked her if he was straight. Brown, choppy hair, eyes that never stayed one color. He wanted to get up and help her, fight alongside whoever else was there, but his arm wouldn't move to his sword no matter how hard he tried.

Keep moving, don't stop. People said no one ever left Tartarus alive, but they had it backwards. Tartarus never left you.

With a groan of pain and the use of every last bit of strength, Nico grabbed the dagger he had strapped to his left arm and pulled it free. The stygian iron was cold, but something in the cold comforted him enough to rise to his feet. In Tartarus, it was hot. It was burning, it was fire. Heat meant fear. Heat was danger. Heat meant you needed to run run run away.

But the cold was the living world, was his weapons, was his new heart beating in his gray chest.

Nico saw what the girl had been holding off and raised his dagger. Two leopards were advancing towards them, making Nico wonder how the fucking hell they got there. But it wasn't the time for questions, and it wasn't the time to stand still.

"What's that weapon do?" he hissed, eyeing the odd looking cornucopia in her hands. "Can it distract them?"

She glanced down at him, her eyes widening slightly when she saw that he was up. "Yeah, I can handle them. Stay back." A pot roast shot out of the cornucopia and over the leopards heads, successfully turning their heads aside. "See?"

Nico went to advance for the kill but his legs gave out. He would have faceplanted into the concrete floor, but the girl caught him just in time. "Woah, there. You need to be resting."