Death and Water

And so that’s what I did. I walked as far as I dared into the forest and sat, looking at a stick on the floor, trying to ake it shake. But as hard as I concentrated, it wouldn’t move. I even tried to stir up some more of the anger, but it didn’t work. I was out of energy and anger, and I realized my little tantrum was ridiculous and shallow. I heard a leaf crack and realize nico di angelo had been standing in front of me for god knows how long. The only reason I realized he was standing there is because he snapped my twig in half, the one I had been trying to get to move. I was too tired and upset to yell at him.
“that was my stick” I say lamely. He doesnt respond, and just sits criss cross in front of me. I raise my eyebrows, but he doesn’t meet my eyes, instead bends his head over and starts drawing elaborate pictures in the dirt with my broken stick. He gets up, motions for me to back up as well, and grabs something out of his pocket after a long time. I tried to make out what he had drawn, but I couldn’t tell.
He pulls out some dry herbs out of his pocket, and throws them in the center of the drawings. As soon as it touched the ground, it exploded in green greek fire, which was almost impossible to snuff out, and burned everything down, even water. I took a few surprised steps back but then moved forward in curiosutity.
In the green flames a figure began to appear. I leaned my head closer to try to see it better. It became clearer and clearer until a face alsmot poppe out at me. “what the hell you looking at demon eyes!” the figure yelled at me. His words slurred, making it seem as if he were drunk.
I threw my head back and looked at nico, but he was amused by the fiery man. “King Abas, this is your step sister, Jade Rhodes, princess of the sea” nico says formally, which surprised me one because I didn’t know nico could be formal, two I didnt know there were more demi god children of Poseidon, but im sure back in the olden days Poseidon layed with every woman which sort of disgusted me, and three, nico wasn’t the type of person to address me as a princess. But I gues it was happening because King Abas turned to me and rolled his eyes, but hald bowed his head. I bowed my head at him.
“jade rhodes, clever” he mutters to himself.
“im sorry, why?” I ask, confused. He rolls his eyes again as if I were the most annoying creature in the world.
“Rhodes, as in daughter of Poseidon, thats what your name literally means” my whole body goes cold. Annabeth knew that, that’s why she tensed up when she heard my last name, she knew the entire time and she never told me or percy. I just didn’t understand why. Not that it mattered much anyway, since she’s on the verge of death. I would ask her about it later when she feels better.
“that’s nice to know” I say carefully, then turn to nico. “why the hell is he here! Is he.. you know..”
“dead? yes, I am. And I do not appreciate being brought back to this shameful world in the middle of a poker game!” he says, anger lighting in his eyes, boy this guy was moody.
“remind you of anyone?” nico says, almost as if reading my mind, I glare at him furiously but then realized I was just probing his point and turned back towards my half brother.
“so um, bro-“
“you will address me as your higness and nothing else” he commands.
“ha no! not doing that” I say. He loos at me strangely, rasing his eyebrows, almost impressed.
“you really are a daughter fo Poseidon aren’t you? Much more like your father then that level headed calm and collected percy. Good! He's annoying, to good, pure, annoying. I like a little wild card thrown in the mix. And you with the son of hades, things sure are going to get a little more interesting” he says, rubbing his hands like maniac.
“you're not making any sense” I say rather abruptly, and rudely, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “and I hate the son of hades” I say pointing to nico, he doesn’t seemd bothered by the comment much, so that was a good thing, or he could have just split the earths and sent me straight to his fathers domain alone with my newly found step brother.
“look girl, everyone knows poseidon’s got two sides, a good one and a bad one, you, fortunately, got the more exciting one” at this, nico snarls, throws his hand through the fire abruptly and the king vanishes. But the damage had been done.
I stood, frozen, looking at the spot where the green fire had just warmed me. Now there was nothing, nothing but cold. I was evil, by heart, I was evil. I had no business being in a camp of heroes, I wasn’t a hero. I was a villain. I was doomed to live out my day and be the villain that heroes like percy would sooner or later face. I was evil. I didn’t deserve a quest, or maybe that’s what the quest was. None of it made sense, I wasd doomed to fail because the good fo the world didnt rest on my shoudlers, I was evil.
The realization hit me like a ton of bricks and I let out an ungodly groan before sinking to my knees. Nico was at my side in a split second, laying an icy hand on my back, but that did nothing but make me feel colder, more lost, more hopeless.
“jade, jade, im so sorry, I didnt know he would do that” he says, which brought me back a little, because here was the son of hades, a super tough, nothing touched him kid sitting on his knees trying to comfort me.
“yes you did, thats why you brought him, you knew, but you weren’t brave enough to tell me yourself, so you got a fucking dead guy to do it for you!” I say, anger exploding in me. He doesn’t even flinch, he's probably been in a lot scarier sitatuin that a teenage girl.
“if you want to know the truth-“
“of course I want to know the truth! That’s all I’ve evr wanted to know! But no ones been able to tell me that my whole life. And I don’t know, for some reason nico, I thought you might know what it feels like enough to tell me, but I guess you care about me even less than I thought. I thought at least you knew it as like being lied to enough to tell me the truth. But it seems as we’ve been both been dealt a bad card, and you didn’t care enough to tell me” I say, spitting at him, staing up and walking briskly out of the woods.
The ground didn’t shake underneath me this time, so I took that as a good thing. Instead of working or finishing my classes or even heading to dinner, I go straight to my cabin and stare at the ceiling until my eyes couldn’t stare any longer. No matter how much Percy, chiron, Fiona or jenny asked me to get out of bed.

Notes