eachdraidh | [Text/Action; Seelie] 05 Shadows

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[Text/Action; Seelie] 05 Shadows

[Nico debates saying anything over voice, but decides against it. He doesn't trust himself to remain collected. Honestly, he feels...drained. Not only is he left with Bianca's shard, but he's now left with Piper and Jason's.

This is too much for him to think or speak clearly. Text is the better option, despite his dyslexia.

The son of Hades takes a deep breath before typing.]

Jason Grace, Piper McLean, and Bianca di Angelo are no longer with us. I currently have their shards.

[He knows for a fact that Thalia will come running to find him in Caer Glaem, so he doesn't bother sending her a private message. This, he thinks, is something that needs to be talked about in person.

Currently, Nico is out on the grounds, sitting next to his gigantic hellhound and looking much like he had when he'd first arrived in the Drabwurld. Alone, sad, and putting up familiar barriers against the pain of loss. Clifford whines at him, not only sensing Nico's distress, but also the loss of one of his favorite demigods.]

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[ luke understands the power of abrupt loss better than anyone. having lost his mother, his father, himself, thalia, annabeth, and even his faith in one consecutive swoop after another had almost rendered him a shell of who he is today. there's nothing he can do to change it, despite his wish to do so. he'd never met bianca, in this world or the one at home, but the loss of jason, a friend he hadn't wanted to befriend, but a boy who had broken through his own walls and persisted in his search to find the real luke within the deep and dark and scary labyrinth, had been someone luke had come to almost love like a brother. and piper was someone he was simply starting to know, liking the fight within her and the way she never seemed to back down from a challenge, despite knowing her too little, too late. ]

[ he opts for text due to it being his usual shield he hides behind. he doesn't particularly wish to talk to nico after the blade he'd plunged right into luke's chest months ago. ]

Shit news. You'll be okay, buddy.

[ it's better than i'm sorry, a hollow acknowledgement expressing his condolences to a boy he knows knew these three individuals better than he ever did. whenever it was said to him, it never felt as though the person meant it, it carved out and hollow and just something you slap onto someone who is in pain. at least that's luke, being guarded around a boy who had blamed him — rightfully so — for his sister's death, but he's not exactly the boy who had been so hellbent on destroying himself he wouldn't at least acknowledge this. ]

Thank you.

[Because, honestly, it is better to be told someone is sure he'll be okay. Maybe not right this second, but eventually he will be. He knows this for a fact, having experienced it before, but having someone know or believe right along with him just...helps.

Losing Bianca again has also reminded him of her last lesson to teach him. Forgiveness, and also asking for forgiveness, even if you'll never get it. It means swallowing down his pride, but he's enjoyed Luke's friendship. That's more important than pride.]

I know this should probably be heard in person or at least over video chat, but. I'm sorry about what I said months ago, about blaming you for Bianca. It was uncalled for and I honestly don't blame you for her death.

[Luke's been just as much a victim of that war as Bianca had been. Though, Nico isn't so sure that's something he should actually say aloud or to Luke's face.]

I'm also sorry I didn't tell you about the aftermath of the Titan War. It was unfair and a disservice to you.

Also, last boon I requested some pictures of our mortal parents. I have one of your mom before Hermes met her. Do you want me to put it in your room?

[ where luke expects it to be done and dusted, a thanks and that's all, what he receives is unexpected. a part of luke, the portion of him that had been so hellbent on destroying himself by plucking anything he could blame himself for from the ground as if they were wild flowers, is angry at nico for even stealing that from him, the great thief of the demigod squad being outwitted by a kid he'd be able to sense from a mile away by the familiar scent of faint death lingering around him. that portion of luke still lives on, thrumming beneath the surface as if it's a titan waiting for the prime moment to snatch the reins from his fingertips and steer this particular carriage off-course. but the part of luke that's begun to settle, especially since he'd retrieved the moon with the assistance of so many people, friend and stranger, he's slowly, and achingly, come to try and not slap the hand that wishes to soothe his hackles away. ]

You really want to be talking about something that happened three months ago when you're grieving?

[ the part of luke that may no longer be at the forefront, steering the vehicle into ditches and attempting to crash him into trees, may lie somewhat dormant, but it still has some grip on him, however fleeting it may be. ]

[ it'd custom to say thanks in return, even an it's all right, but luke's no longer the kid with his hollow reassurances, putting on a farce while on the inside he's seething and hurt. after nico had revealed the loss of his sister, it'd become another heavy weight for him to slap onto his back as if it were the sky, but rather than do as luke thinks atlas should, letting the sky crush him and put him out of his misery, it's something luke's made himself bear for three months and counting. the loss of bianca is as much his fault as the deaths of both charlie and silena. regardless if nico forgives him, luke won't be forgiving himself. ]

[ but it's the mention of mom before hermes, a woman who had once existed without being carved out and left hollow, that sees him not dictate to his locket his own hollow thanks, or even a rejection of nico's apology, not wishing to accept something that luke knows, regardless of what anyone may say, is true. for a kid who may have blamed luke out of the heat of the moment for his sister's death, believing him undeserving of knowing his own status at the end of the war, the resentment he'd held toward luke and kronos had sparked a wild fire that had consumed a good portion of their budding friendship for the months luke took to stewing and collapsing in on himself. it doesn't make sense he'd ask for his mother's photgraph — even though luke knows nico's the type of idiot to shadow travel continuously, despite the emotional and mental toll it may take, to ensure a burning village with a population of a hundred people are relocated to safer territory. ]

[ he slaps on a private, not wishing for anyone to see anything that may transpire. it's no one's business but nico and luke's when it comes to this particular conversation of forgiveness and gross friends being really gross. ]

Why?

That doesn't give me the right to continue to let things fester.

[Bianca and Jason wouldn't want Nico to continue doing that. Besides that, he doesn't want to go back down the slippery slope of holding a grudge against someone. Once with Percy has been enough, and he wants to avoid nursing another one on top of everything else in the Drabwurld.

Nico also genuinely doesn't think Luke deserves those feelings from him anyway. The son of Hermes deals with enough all on his own, and Nico doesn't want to add his own baggage onto the older demigod.

The subject of May Castellan is a tricky one, though. He's pretty sure it's a bad idea to mention the fact that he's met her and asked her how Luke got the Curse of Achilles. Nico bites his lip. There's a certain word he's been using a lot lately to describe people from other worlds as well as Jason. To use it to describe Luke right to his face instead of to someone else, that's a bigger leap for him to make. He's willing to make it, though, and prays that he won't fall short of reaching the other side.]

I thought that you deserved to know who she was. And now I'm hoping that we can still be friends.

I kind of don't deserve anything.

[ one may be able to take the intensity out of the self-loathing, but one can never take the self-loathing out of the boy. ]

[ luke will always hate himself, even if it's at an intensity that burns the planet alive, or even if it's a nice, warm hearth for hestia to defrost her delicate hands over. it's easier to travel along the road if those around him feel the same way every time their eyes fall on his hideous scar. he'd been validated, if stung, when nico had agreed with him all those months ago. ]

[ if it weren't for his talk with percy, he'd find it easier to slap nico away and say we're not friends. but after the dumb kid had forgiven him to his face, detailing why it is he wishes to befriend luke rather than hate him ... he doesn't think himself worthy of forgiveness or the extension of their hands out toward him in a gesture of friendship, but he softens towards taking what he wants — even if a part of him wishes to push everyone away in a bid to protect them from himself. ]

Yeah. You're eighty years old and you haven't seen shit. May the force be with you? Your face smells like peppermint? Jessica Alba being the hottest woman alive? Real Housewives of Orange County? Kind of embarrassing that you don't know what I'm talking about.

Edited (no one saw that.) 2014-11-21 11:43 (UTC)

[ he wants to leave it at that, ending it on a positive note before he inevitably destroys it. but luke can't quite help himself, wanting to nitpick at something that has triggered the little boy who had grown up too quickly to resurface from where he had once slept soundly and deeply. ]

How do you even know it's before Hermes?

[ he's seen the photographs of her in the attic, of her young and energetic, all her trophies for athletics lining the bookshelves as dust sleeps on top of them. but seeing her in pictures is difficult when he can't reconcile her to the woman who had slowly slid into insanity, her own beauty deteriorating before his very eyes as he grew older and wiser and scared. her entire existence was smothered in hermes and destinies and peanut butter sandwiches that it's difficult for him to even begin imagining may castellan was once a person who loved objects or people fearlessly and perhaps even disliked the smell of peanut butter. ]

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[That's both a safe question and an unsafe one. Nico goes with the answer that's safest in this situation. There's just too much about his dealings with May Castellan that he just can't talk about for very good reasons, at least in his opinion.]

I specifically requested it. Your mom, Piper's dad, Jason's mom...all of them I requested to have at a time before the gods met them. Even my own mother's photo is from before she met Hades for the first time.

[Something he still carries in his pocket and takes out to look at, to memorize the face of a woman he'd only known for 10 short years of his life.]

You're an embarrassment.

[ but it's not the focus of texting nico, not when he's dropped a bomb that may castellan once existed outside of hermes. it's overwhelming to have what he had thought and could only glean from her personal items he'd found in their attic that may was once someone who lived for herself rather than for a god who barely had the time of day for her once she'd had luke. ]

Is she happy?

[ and that's the answer he dreads the most. he'd seen glimpses of her being happy, but melancholy had made itself home upon her pretty face long before luke had learned the reason to the pinch to her brows when he wasn't around to entertain her. ]

Yes.

[He can say that much with confidence. Nico is honestly sorry that Luke had been robbed of the mother he should've had.]

[ what had luke been expecting? no? his mother had been born unhappy and would die unhappy? a part of him feels like he's to blame for leeching her of any happiness he'll see in the photograph nico's booned. if it hadn't been for him, she'd never have been haunted by his destiny. ]

Guess I never thought a time like that could ever exist. Anything the gods touch, it crumbles into complete shit.

[ the moment may had informed him his father was the god who had a knack for postal service, his entire life went to the hellhounds. he can only suspect hers — and all the other mortal parents cursed to be the forgotten significant others of the gods — had followed the same pattern. ]

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[Text/Action; Seelie] 05 Shadows

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