#So far i think Nightmare essentially mortally wounds him

[x-letsbreaksomerules-x]

having tranquil hawke thoughts. it’s that kind of night

[p-artsypants]

I’ll Handle This (14)

In Which Lila Meets an Eldritch Abomination

Ao3 | FF.net

Lila never came back to class. No one saw her after school, and all messages of “what the heck was that?” to her were ignored. So Plagg was slightly confused when it came to the contract not working. He did worry that she was just gathering her sources for another attack. What was she planning? A lawsuit? It wouldn’t be unlike her. 

“What’s going on?” Marinette asked, as they walked to the bakery. “I thought you fulfilled the last condition?” 

“The powers of destruction come with a small sense of omniscience. I can’t predict the future or even consciously see what’s going on, but I can usually tell when something bad is going to happen, and what it’s going to be.” 

“So what’s up?” 

“Not sure. My powers are drastically weakened while I’m in Adrien’s body. The Miraculous can probably tell something is wrong. My guess is that Lila is plotting revenge.” 

Adrien looked up from Marinette’s purse. “Should we be worried?” 

“You don’t worry about a thing. Guaranteed that she’s out for my blood. I’ll be able to handle whatever she throws at me.” 

“Even if it’s a lawsuit?” Marinette asked. 

“Well...Gabriel can hire a good lawyer. Besides, her mom doesn’t trust her. Why would she enable Lila’s lawsuit?” 

“Maybe not a lawsuit then. But I think she’s going to reach out for help now.” 

“No. I don’t think so. Lila is very much a ‘if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself’ type. I’m sure she’s coming up with something.” 

At this point, they reached the bakery, and Plagg bid them farewell. 

“Are you sure I can stay?” Asked Adrien, sounding far too optimistic. 

“Please. If you were with me, I’d just have to listen to you wax poetic about how much you love Marinette, and how much you miss her, and how badly you want to kiss her.” 

“Shut up.” 

“Am I wrong?” 

Adrien hid his face in her neck, embarrassed. 

“I know him well. I’ll catch you later, Pigtails.” He gave a salute and headed back to the mansion. 

Many things crossed Plagg’s mind, most of which were cheese related. He thought about what he was going to have for dinner. He thought about how Gabriel and Emilie were doing, and if that was being resolved as well as he was hoping. 

But he didn’t expect someone to grab his wrist and yank him into an alleyway. 

His arm was yanked behind his back, and a sharp blade pressed to his throat. 

“Shut up and don’t move.” A female voice commanded. 

Plagg mulled over the sound for a second before asking, “Lila?” 

“I said don’t move!” She shrieked. Her hold on him was tight, but she was trembling. “I’m going to kill you! It’s the only way...” 

“Only way what?” He asked calmly. 

“To pay you back for what you did! You took everything from me! My mom, my job, the class...I have nothing now!” 

“I think you’re being a little dramatic.” 

“I am not!” She howled. The gravel in her voice really accentuated the insanity in her tone. She had clearly snapped. “My kingdom has toppled, and I have to start all over again! Everything was so perfect! I even had you wrapped around my finger...and then you had to go and show your true colors! You’ll pay for this!” 

Plagg very easily twisted out of her hold and away from the knife, but didn’t try to disarm her. She had a pocket knife, with a blade that could still do some damage, despite it being rather small. 

“Okay, that’s enough of this. You’re still in school. Most of your peers don’t even have jobs. Kids have rocky relationships with their parents all the time. All that stuff you ‘lost’? You can get it back, and probably better than ever if you’re genuine and honest.” 

She sneered at him. “That’s all well and good for some people, but I don’t want relationships. I want pure, unwavering dedication. And I had it! Our classmates were willing to do everything for me! But you and Marinette—!” 

“Marinette had nothing to do with this.” 

“I know she did! You didn’t just go from being a pushover to whatever this is for no reason! She put you up to this! She’s turned you on me!” 

Plagg tilted his head up so he could look down at her over his nose. “Is that what you think? That someone as sweet as Marinette is capable of convincing me to play friendly with you to purposely piss you off?” 

Lila’s face fell. “You mean...that was all an act?” 

“Every bit. I hate your guts Lila. I’m glad your so-called kingdom has come crashing down. You didn’t deserve it anyway.” 

She screamed at him and waved the knife in his face. “Give me one good reason not to slice your face right now! That would ruin your life, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t have daddy’s approval with a big ugly scar on your face, would you?” 

Plagg watched the knife passively. “You wouldn’t hurt me. You’re a coward. You wouldn’t get your hands dirty.” 

“Try me!” She shouted, the blade poking his cheek. 

He hummed. “I have to ask myself, ‘what would the real Adrien have done?’ And the answer is probably to grovel and cry...but honestly, I don’t care much for that option.” 

Confusion took over her face. “What do you mean, the real Adrien? You are Adrien.” 

He closed his eyes, and reached up to take off his sunglasses. “Lila, Lila, Lila...Adrien hasn’t inhabited this body in a long, long time.” He opened his eyes, and they resembled Chat Noir’s. Not just with slit pupils, but with acid green sclera too. 

“What...?” She stared at him. 

The paint on the wall next to him started to peel. “I saw what you were doing, and I allowed it, because I don’t care about petty mortal squabbles.” The pavement under their feet cracked, and the cracks grew out and away from him. “But you continued to involve me in your plans, and I don’t like to be manipulated.” 

Totally full of fear and hyped up on adrenaline, Lila punched the knife into Plagg’s shoulder. 

He didn’t even flinch. He just took the blade out and ran a hand over the wound, sealing it. Then he held the knife up in front of her face, letting her watch as the metal melted in his hand. 

She backed away from him, hitting the wall behind her, paint still peeling. “What are you? What the hell are you?! Some kind of demon?!” 

His eyes flashed with a glowing green, and more cracks danced up the side of the building. From deep within the darkness, tiny black tendrils of shadow emerged and made their presence known. From each corner of the alley, from the window sills, from the rooftops, black cats peered around and yowled lowly. The calls filled the space with awful, droning songs. 

“Demon? No.” He chuckled. “Bitch, I’m a god.” 

At this, Lila started crying. She looked frantically from side to side, looking for a way out. A way to escape from this nightmare. “What are you going to do to me?!” She wailed. 

“I haven’t decided yet. Depends on if I want you alive or not. I’m leaning on the not right now.” 

“Oh god!” She dropped on her knees in front of him. “Please forgive me! Please! I’m so sorry!” 

“You’re sorry now, now when it’s too late. And only for your own sake. Selfish witch.” 

“Please don’t kill me! I’ll make it up to you! I’ll...I’ll do whatever you want! You know I can be very convincing! I’ll serve you and do whatever you want! Get you whatever you need!” 

He laughed. “With what? Do you know who you’re talking to? I’m Adrien Agreste, one of the most famous people in Paris, if not all of France. And you have no credit anywhere. That’s why you pulled a knife on me, remember?” 

She was on her hands and knees. “Please? Please just give me some time!” 

“One week.” He smirked. 

She looked at him with hope. 

“One week, to run and hide, and then I’m coming after you. If you leave Paris, you’ll probably be safe. But if I ever see you again. You’re dead.” 

She looked like a ghost, she had gone so white. She just stared with the biggest eyes as the shadows started to disappear.

“Get along now, dear. You’ve got some packing to do.” He stepped aside, and gestured to the alley’s opening for her. 

Lila staggered to her feet and took off running, and he could hear her sobbing all the while. 

The ring finally, blessedly beeped. One minute to get home before they switched back. 

Oh god, only one minute! 

He too ran out of the alleyway, much less frantic. 

—

About an hour later, Adrien awoke on a hard floor. Last he remembered, he was with Marinette, watching a movie while laying in her chest. He must have fallen asleep, but why was he on the floor? 

He blinked awake, seeing the lobby of the mansion. He was lying on the cold marble floor. 

And Plagg was sitting in front of him, in his Kwami body, and eating some Camembert. 

“Wakey wakey Sleeping Beauty!” He sang. 

“Plagg!” Adrien shot up. “You’re you! And I’m—“ he held out his hands and looked at his fingers. “I’m me! Look! I have fingers! And toes!” As he stretched, he pulled the muscle in his shoulder and curled in. “Ow! What the heck is wrong with my shoulder?” 

“Oh sorry, Lila stabbed you.” 

“She what?! Oh my god do I need to go to the hospital?!” 

“Eh, probably not. I’m not a healer like Tikki, but I can cauterize the wound at least. So you won’t get infected or bleed to death. Maybe see a doctor if it keeps hurting in a month.” 

“Wow, great. Thanks,” he couldn’t help but laugh. “What did you do? Why did she stab you—me?” 

“I don’t know. Mad about outing herself I guess. I scared her into thinking your body is possessed by an eldritch god. Which was true about an hour ago. And sorry, by the way, the transfer is always so much harder on you than me.” 

“No apologies necessary, buddy! You’re a lifesaver!” He grabbed the little creature and pressed a dozen kisses to his bulbous head. 

“Ew! Gross! Stop! Stop!” Plagg giggled. Then he shouted, “Alright! ENOUGH!” and tore away from Adrien. “Geez, smother me, why don’t ya?” 

“Sorry, I just…you really fixed everything.” 

“For the most part.” Plagg added. “Relationships take cultivation to reap the benefits from.”

“What, now you’re onto farm analogies?”

“FARM WISDOM!” Plagg sang. “But yes, essentially. You and Marinette have a great beginning. Just keep communicating, and encourage her to be honest and open with you. You and your father need some serious help. I’m glad he confessed about the whole Hawkmoth thing, but you both need to get some serious therapy. Once he comes back with your mom, I hope things will be better.”

“I know they will be. Mom was really good about making sure we communicated. And dad was a happier person when she was around.”

Plagg nodded, knowingly. “But you should still put in effort, as you have been doing. It won’t work if you just assume things are going to be better because your mom is back.”

“Oh, I see.” 

“And finally, Lila. I’m pretty sure she’s out of the picture now. However, there will be more Lila’s in the future. You’re a celebrity, and there will always be people that will try to take advantage of you. You can be nice, but don’t put up with it.”

“Should I annoy them with my extensive knowledge of Skyrim?”

“Save that as a last resort.” 

“Will you help me?” 

Plagg screwed up his face as he went back to his wheel of cheese. “My help comes in two forms; vague analogies and full body possession.” 

“Guess I’ll have to get better at understanding analogies, huh?”

The kwami smiled, then added. “But you don’t have to come just to me for help. You have a pretty extensive support network now. You can talk to Nino, Marinette, your parents…you’re not on your own anymore, kid.” 

Adrien sat up a little straighter at that. “Wow…you’re right! I have so many people I can confide in now! This is great!” 

“And just maybe…you should check in on Marinette? Once we transferred back, I woke up in her room and left without a word. She’s probably worried.” 

“Noted! Plagg, claws out!” 

“I just got out of your stinky body~!” He shouted as he was absorbed into the ring. 

Adrien started running. He knew his end goal was the bakery, but for now, he was just excited to be in his own skin again. He could eat whatever he wanted! He didn’t need to stay cramped in a bag all day! He could shower! 

And HE COULD KISS MARINETTE! 

Why the hell was he wasting time!? 

He turned about and rushed to the bakery, making a dizzying amount of leaps and turns. Then he collided with her balcony, his landings being a little rusty. 

“Plagg?” Marinette asked, as she opened the door. “What’s going on? Why did Adrien leave so suddenly? Hey—you’ve got your normal suit on!” 

In a pounce, he was on her, lifting her out of the window by the waist and up into his arms. “Oh My Lady…” He whispered. 

“Adrien?”

He smashed his lips to hers, tired of waiting. Tired of holding back his affections. Tired of not physically being with her. He kissed her face, her cheeks, her chin, any swath of skin he could find. It wasn’t good kissing, by any means, but it was her, them, together. 

“Adrien!” She giggled. “Calm down!”

“No!” Kiss. “I’m too—“ Kiss. “—Excited to—“ Kiss. “—Stop!” 

She let him kiss her silly, until he was huffing and puffing. 

“Are you good?”

“For a few minutes, I think.” 

“Then can you put me down?” She chuckled. He was still holding her by the waist, and she was dangling through the skylight. 

“Oh! I’m sorry, my love.” He let her down into her room, onto her bed, and then released his transformation. 

“Blegh!” Plagg gagged. “I purposefully avoided kissing her while I was in your body, and you STILL made me experience it! Betrayal!” 

“Oh calm down, Plagg. I’m sure it won’t be the last time.” 

Plagg groaned anyway and zipped off to find Tikki. 

“Would you like to come in?”

“Please!” He slid in through the window and tackled her down into the mattress, cuddling up to her chest. “It was nice laying on you when I was two inches tall, but this is way better.” He squeezed her waist and kissed her collarbone. 

“So what happened? You and I were watching a movie, and then you just got up and left without a word!”

“That was Plagg! Last I knew, I was on your chest still. Apparently, he scared Lila right out of Paris and then made a mad dash for home. He made it to the lobby before he collapsed.” 

“He scared her out of Paris?” 

“That’s what he said.” 

She raked her fingers through his hair, her nails scratching along his scalp. He immediately melted into her and started purring. “Ohhh yes, my lady. I could get used to this.” 

“It was nice having you with me all the time, but I still missed you. It wasn’t the same talking to Plagg’s body. I love you, after all. All of you.”

“I love you too, My Lady.” 

She stopped petting him for a minute. “You’re not going to keep wearing terrible outfits, are you?”

“God no.” 

—

The next day, Adrien was brought to school by car. He wore a white shirt, black t-shirt, jeans, and his orange sneakers…and no sunglasses. Upon exiting the car, he spotted his friends talking. 

“NINOOOOOOOO!!!” He shouted as he sprinted. 

Nino only had seconds to brace himself before Adrien launched himself into his arms, wrapping his legs around his waist. “I missed you!”

“Dude you’re back!?”

“In the flesh!” He got down. “Thank you, by the way, for everything you did.” 

“It was nothing! Anything for my dawg,” and he added with a whisper, “and little dude.” 

Plagg peered out and gave him a wink. 

Marinette spoke up. “Why don’t I get a morning greeting like that?”

He kissed her sweetly. “Next time I see you, I’ll leap on you like a majestic monkey.” 

Alya squealed. “Is it official then?! I knew I saw you guys making goo-goo eyes at each other! But every time I mentioned it, Marinette said it was nothing!” 

“Yes Alya, we’re officially dating now.” Marinette wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against his chest. In return, he rubbed her shoulders and leaned his head against hers. Now that she had gotten a taste of being close to him, she never wanted it to stop. Even if it was obnoxious to everyone around her, she was home. 

“Hey, has Lila been talking to anybody since yesterday?” Alya winced. “I mean, that whole thing was totally bonkers. I just wanted to get some answers.” 

“Yeah, no. She’s super gone. She stabbed me, so she left Paris.” 

The collective paling of faces made him realize he left out some details. 

“SHE WHAT!?” 

“I got better.”

--

This is officially the end! Thank you for reading!!

[recentanimenews]

Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train – All Aboard

In 2020, and what I believe to be the first time ever, the highest grossing film of the year wasn’t American. It wasn’t Chinese, either, which one could reasonably expect to be the first non-American film to take the crown. No, it was Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train. That’s an achievement that may never be matched. It also broke the record for home box office gross, now reigning over both Spirited Away and Your Name.

$500 million gross is a lot of cash to rake in, especially during a global pandemic. But after finally getting around to watch Mugen Train, which is essentially “Season 1.5” of the series, I totally understand why: it is an absolute crowd pleaser stuffed with action, comedy, and drama. I laughed; I cried; I may have pumped my fist and shouted “Fuck yeah!” once or twice.

But! Mugen Train is merely a very good movie. It is certainly a very good movie watching experience. What it is definitely not is a great film, and falls far short of the masterpiece status of the anime films whose records it broke. There is no single big reason for that, but several smaller ones which become evident throughout its prestigious 117-minute runtime.

* * * * *

First, as we know from the end of the first season (yes, you really should watch it), a Kasugai crow ordered Tanjirou (with Nezuko on his back), Zenitsu, and Inosuke to join Flame Hashira Rengoku Kyoujurou aboard the titular Mugen Train, which has a demon problem. Rengoku is, as most high-ranking warriors in these kinds of shows, a bit of an eccentric, but has heard about Tanjirou and Nezuko and is even willing to train him.

Their demon opponent is Enmu, a member of the Lower Six and the group’s resident “gross body horror” niche occupied by the likes of Bleach’s 12th Captain, Kurotsuchi Mayuri (or more recently, Jujutsu Kaisen’s Mahito). Enmu spends much of the movie standing atop the front of the train, talking about how much he’s looking forward to devouring its 200 passengers but never actually doing so despite having ample opportunity. Ya know, typical big bad behavior.

Enmu’s preferred way of rendering his prey helpless is by putting them to sleep. He has made four regular human passengers plus the conductor into his minions: the tickets the conductor punches contain a bit of his blood which is used to put the slayers to sleep along with everyone else. In exchange, the minions are promised wonderful dreams in which to lose themselves.

With all the demon slayers asleep, we take a look into the dreams they’re having, none of which come as much of a surprise. Tanjirou’s is a very happy dream in which he’s reunited with his family, who act like they were never slaughtered by a demon. Suffice it to say, it’s an easy dream to get lost in.

Zenitsu’s dream involves frolicking through forests and fields with Nezuko, which would be touching were his relationship with her in the show not so easily boiled down to “one-sided obsession” or simply “toxic.” Inosuke’s dream is aggressively weird and surreal, like him, but like Zenitsu and Tanjirou’s doesn’t offer any further insight into the character.

Rengoku’s does, but only because aside from a couple of brief scenes last season, we don’t really know who the guy is. What we do get is pure hero boilerplate: following in the footsteps of a former Hashira father who gave up the life and doesn’t care anymore, while having to be both big brother and father figure to his younger brother to keep him from falling into despair. Also, their sainted mom is dead.

Ultimately the dreams aren’t supposed to be particularly enlightening to us, as long as they keep the dreamers occupied and distracted. The minions then go in, find the edges of their dreams, tear them open with what look like icepicks provided by Enmu, and pass into the subconscious where their spiritual cores lie. Obviously, none of the minions succeeds.

Tanjirou already has an inkling he’s in a world of illusion, since his default thoughts are that his family is dead and Nezuko is a demon, so his senses must be wrong. His subconscious actually reaches out to him through a reflection in the water, telling him he needs to wake up, even if it’s being made very difficult to do so because it means running away from his confused and upset family.

His minion, by the way, sought relief in his dreams because in the waking world he was wasting away from Tuberculosis. When he reaches Tanjirou’s gorgeous (and very Spirited Away-esque!) subconscious, he doesn’t have the heart to go through with destroying his core. Tanjirou ends up waking up by slashing his neck with his own sword—call it the equivalent of the “kicks” in Inception that wake you up from dreams (or dreams within dreams).

Tanjirou is the first to wake up. Rengoku’s survival instinct kicks in and he chokes his minion before she can destroy his core (a very graphic depiction of violence against a woman that’s very oddly scored as triumphant) but he remains asleep. Tanjirou sees that Nezuko burned away the rope connecting him to his minion, and asks her to burn away the others’ ropes while he goes topside to meet the boss.

After exchanging some standard big-bad/hero dialogue, Tanjirou manages to behead Enmu, but of course his head isn’t really his head, nor his body his real body. Turns out he’s merged with the train, meaning the entire train his his body, with his head hidden…somewhere (the head of the train).

Enmu then continues to put Tanjirou to sleep, taking the same route as the Farscape masterpiece “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, turning the dreams into increasingly disturbing nightmares to throw the hero off his game. Tanjirou counters this by continuously slashing his neck as soon as he enters his dream.

With every surface of the train suddenly erupting with reddish-purple goo, suddenly all 200 passengers have to be protected at once. Fortunately, thanks to Nezuko burning their ropes the others start waking up, starting with Inousuke, who is ready to rumble. Nezuko slashes at the tentacles attacking passengers, but is quickly overwhelmed and restrained.

Enter Zenitsu, who gets to have a seriously badass moment with his thunder breathing assault, rescuing her from her doom. Let it be said this film does nothing to make Nezuko more of the bit character/mascot she devolved into in the anime, and outside of Tanjirou and Zenitsu’s dreams, she never speaks, which remains odd as there are plenty of demons who can talk.

All the commotion caused by Zenitsu’s thunder and lightning finally wakes up Rengoku, who has does his whole “how have I been sleeping through all this” line, and fills the cars with tentacle-burning flames (which naturally don’t affect the passengers). He orders Tanjirou and Inousuke to find Enmu’s head while he protects the passengers in five of the eight cars and Zenitsu and Nezuko handles the remaining three.

When his best water breathing technique can only tear away the flesh of Enmu’s “neck” to reveal the bone, Tanjirou employs his dad’s Hinokami Kagura breathing, which does the trick. Enmu’s real head is separated from his body (the train) and in his death throes, the train is derailed and crashes…which really should kill a lot of the passengers, yet doesn’t.

During his struggle with Enmu the minion conductor stabbed Tanjirou in the abdomen, but Rengoku quickly teaches Tanjirou how to use Total Concentration, Constant to staunch his broken blood vessel. Even so, Tanjirou is in no condition to fight anymore, with more than forty minutes left in the film. Enmu slowly disintegrates after lots of whining, including about how he was never able to enjoy his meal (which was all his fault) or rise to the ranks of the Upper Ten.

Right on cue, one of the members of that Upper Ten shows up completely out of the blue: the Upper Three, Akaza, covered in tatts and slightly resembling an evil Tanjirou with his short-cropped red hair. And while the ensuing duel between Akaza and Rengoku is pretty cool, the combat animation isn’t appreciably better than that of the TV show. More importantly, Akaza and the battle feel tacked on rather than a natural escalation of the conflict.

It also begs the question of if an even bigger demon big bad could show up willy-nilly, why couldn’t the same be true of other Hashira? The answer is, because the movie needs Rengoku to die, even though he was being set up as Tanjirou’s new mentor and big brother figure. At the end of the day, Akaza can regenerate almost instantly, while Rengoku is a mortal human of flesh and blood, and the wounds he suffers prove fatal.

The climax of the film also plays with the timing of the rising of the sun, which begins to light Akaza’s face as Rengoku tries to hold him in place so he’ll disintegrate. Instead, he flees into the forest to fight another day and provide Tanjirou with a future opponent with whom to avenge Rengoku. Like Demon Slayer reinforcements, the sun doesn’t show up when you’d think it should.

The final act consists of Rengoku providing Tanjirou the same encouragement as his little brother in his dream (and presumably in real life), as well as meeting his force ghost sainted mother, who tells him she’s proud of him (he did reject Akaza’s repeated offers to turn him into a demon, after all). Tanjirou is naturally very upset over losing another important person in his life.

As for the impact it had on me…the film just didn’t do the adequate legwork to make him anything more than a passing guest star. He had a few goofy moments, a few badass moments, and a very long death scene, and was suddenly gone, seemingly as soon as he arrived.

So as much of a funny, thrilling and sometimes genuinely moving crowd-pleaser as Mugen Train was, as a sequel to the series it fulfilled a fairly utilitarian role, establishing how tough the Hashira can be, while establishing that the most powerful demons are even tougher, on the biggest screen possible.

It also gave Tanjirou both further motivation to fight the demons, though considering what he’s lost so far, I’d say he already had plenty, as well as the direction to the next nugget of info about his pop’s Kagura, which he’ll surely pursue in the second season. Mugen Train had no shortage of faults to go with its merits, but one thing at which it unassailably succeeded was making me excited for the second season, for which my ticket is already punched.

By: braverade

[dotshiiki]

CoL, chpt 14

WARNING! This chapter is rated R for references to self-harm and allusions to mental illness and post-traumatic stress. Although the details are not explicit, I would still like to stress that if any of these issues are triggers for you, it might be better to skip this chapter!

XIV: NICO

Nico couldn't stop shivering.

He'd always avoided small spaces since he'd been trapped in Otis and Ephialtes' bronze jar, and Arachne's spider silk prison was a considerably tighter fit than the jar. Even after he was freed, he couldn't shake off the claustrophobic way the fibres had closed in on him, wrapping him progressively tighter in their iron grip.

And then there were their new companions. Percy and Annabeth were clearly overjoyed at Bob and Damasen's appearance. Nico knew he should be, too—Bob had been a long-time friend, one of the few he'd had in those lonely years between losing Bianca and finding Hazel—but the 'welcome back' he offered the Titan tasted like bile in his mouth.

Twice, now, Bob had come when someone had needed him. But why had he never come for Nico?

'Nico, friend,' Bob said in his rumbling voice, 'you are not good?'

'I'm fine.' Nico pushed the bitterness down. Stop being petty, he told himself.

Oh, but you always knew how to bear even the most trifling grudges! How many people have you blamed for things they couldn't control? The wailing souls in the Acheron gleefully supplied him with examples of all the times he'd lashed out with anger. At Percy. At Annabeth. At Jason. The list went on. Your heart is full of hatred. You're no better than us.

Shut up, Nico told them silently.

Will looked at him sharply. Obviously he didn't believe for a second Nico was fine, but he didn't push it.

'How did you and Damasen make it out of Chaos?' Annabeth asked. 'We hoped you would, but we didn't really know if it was actually possible.'

'Hm,' said Bob. He scratched his scruffy silver beard. 'Stars called our names.'

Damasen held out a twisted bundle of rope wound with a few silver arrows: the lines they'd left dangling into the pit of Chaos after pulling Percy and Annabeth up.

'You called for us in the dark of Night, Annabeth Chase,' he said. 'You called us back to who we were. Who we chose to be.'

'We chose us,' Bob said.

'You chose your own fate,' Annabeth translated.

'When we chose to fight by your side, it gave us an identity that was foreign to Tartarus. It gave us an identity to hold on to even in Chaos.'

Bob nodded. 'Tartarus could not collect our souls for his armour after all.'

Annabeth looked like there was more she wanted to ask about this, but she just said, 'Will you come with us now, then?'

'You picked a dangerous path, demigods,' Damasen said solemnly. 'The Caves of Night are not meant to be traversed by mortals.'

'We didn't have a choice,' Thalia said. 'And we're stronger than you think.'

'Perhaps. But what lies in these caves are not things that can be defeated by physical strength alone.' His eyes fell on Nico. 'I think you know this, young son of Hades.'

Nico looked away.

'Do you know another way, then?' Annabeth said hopefully. 'We have to get to the heart of Tartarus. The sooner the better.'

Bob and Damasen looked at each other.

'Caves are fastest,' Bob said. 'But full of spirits. They do not disturb Titans. I do not know if your minds can withstand it.'

'I've made it past them,' Nico said. 'Mimas brought me through these caves.'

Six pairs of eyes fixed on him curiously. Nico wanted to sink back into the shadows. He'd never spoken of this before. Not to Reyna, not to Will, not even to Hazel, to whom he'd outlined the essentials of his experience right after he'd gotten out of Tartarus the previous time.

No one knew how he'd been tricked by the crafty giant Mimas into thinking he'd found the Doors, only to tumble down a black chute, straight into the bowels of Tartarus. Or how Mimas and his band of gigantes had bound him and marched him through these caves before handing him over to the twin giants and their bronze jar.

He'd managed for years to suppress the visions that the cruel deities in the Caves of Night had presented him. But now he was back on the doorstep of those spirits, with the nightmares so close, they took no effort to recall.

'The spawn of Nyx make their homes in these caves,' Nico explained. 'We've only scratched the surface of it. She birthed all the primordial spirits that personify the darkest evils. Pandora's pithos, the jar that released those evils into the world—it was filled here.'

'Just more demons to fight, then,' Thalia said.

Nico wanted to smack the confidence off her freckled face. 'You don't understand,' he said flatly. 'They make you see—see things.'

They weren't things he could find words for. How could he possibly explain how the spirits of Nyx had turned him inside out and put his innermost feelings shamefully on display?

Once, he'd hoped that he could have shared his story with Percy and Annabeth. Then he'd realised their experience was different. No one who had never encountered the Caves of Night could possibly understand how it felt to come through them. They way they shattered you into a million pieces of your own shame.

You will always be alone, Nico di Angelo. Who would ever love you?

He remembered begging for mercy while Mimas howled with glee. In the end, Otis and Ephialtes hadn't needed to stuff him in the bronze jar. He'd crawled in by himself, broken and desperate to escape the horrors. The soundproof jar had given him a brief respite from Mimas's horror show, before he'd realised that in his weakness, he'd been enticed into another trap.

He'd never admitted it to anyone, but he hadn't turned to his pomegranate seeds as a ploy to survive. By the time he'd remembered he had them, he'd simply been grateful for the escape the death trance allowed him, even if it was into a mindless coma.

None of the other demigods on the Argo had even suspected during his time with them that he'd used the seeds occasionally to forget. To meditate until he was completely numb to his feelings. They'd barely noticed when he'd holed himself up, silent and still.

A hand fell on his shoulder. Expecting Will and not wanting his pity, he tried to shrug it away. But Annabeth's grip was firm.

'I remember Mimas. How he plays on your emotions,' she said. 'It's awful. I hated it, too. But he's not here now. And you are. You were strong enough to survive it once, and that's why you knew you could get us through again. You led us this far, Nico. We trust you. And we're in this together.'

You will always be alone.

Nico shook the voice out of his head again. He put his hand on top of Annabeth's. She smiled and squeezed his shoulder once, then let go.

'We will help to keep the spirits from attacking physically,' Damasen said. 'But their powers are beyond our control. Many have been driven mad by what they show—even the lesser monsters dare not venture here.'

'Take them spirally,' Bob suggested.

Damasen's rust-coloured eyes blinked slowly. 'Yes, that is a possibility.'

'Where are we going?' Annabeth asked. 'Will it still get us to the heart of Tartarus?'

'A small detour,' Bob promised. 'A rest stop.'

'With luck,' Damasen added, 'it will give some peace after…'

'Rest stop sounds good,' said Percy.

With Bob and Damasen in the lead, they plunged forward into the red-tinged darkness of the caves. The Acheron followed them at first, in a crescendo of wailing souls that soon reached a frenetic pitch of agony.

Suffer with us, Nico di Angelo! they screamed in his mind. Why should you escape punishment for your crimes?

Bianca sizzled up in a storm of electricity, clutching the tiny figurine of their father. Percy and Annabeth slipped from his hand and fell away into endless darkness. Bryce Lawrence faded into black obscurity. Octavian exploded in a firestorm.

Nico gritted his teeth until the insistent cries of 'Your fault! All your fault!' finally dulled to an accusing murmur when their path split from the river. The others wore varied expressions of relief at the reprieve, but Nico knew the Acheron's torments were child's play compared to what lay ahead of them.

They didn't have to wait long. A loud clang greeted them at an otherwise innocuous junction. Sprouting from an outcrop of rock was the upper body of a girl with ashen skin and cymbals in place of hands. Her hair grew in two plaited bundles that ended in thick, grey bobs. These beat against the cave walls in time with her clashing cymbal hands to create a booming rhythm that reverberated through Nico's whole body.

Her lips stretched into a wicked smile. Although she didn't speak, a dull whisper rose out of the darkness: 'What have we here?'

The last word echoed down the tunnels like a doorbell alerting the cave dwellers to their arrival. As it grew louder, the speaker fluttered down from the ceiling. She landed in front of Nico, her bat wings curving back around a golden trumpet that hung over her shoulder.

'I thought I heard visitors,' she hissed. Across her body, dozens of wagging tongues took up the chant: Visitors, visitors, VISITORS. Purple eyes dotted her feathery skin, running along her arms and torso. She had more ears than Nico could count: at least three pairs on her head alone, and more sprouting from her sides.

'All the better to hear you with,' one of her tongues told Nico.

Bob stepped in front of her. 'They're with us, Pheme,' he said.

Pheme laughed. 'I don't touch, Titan. I merely spread the news—all the news.' Her mouth curved viciously. 'And my siblings don't need to touch your…friends—' the word dripped with innuendo—'to devour them.'

'Keep moving,' Damasen ordered. 'Pheme spreads hearsay—her words travel like wildfire. The others will descend shortly. Bob and I will guard you, but we cannot carry you through if you stop.'

Passing Pheme was like walking through a high school hallway under the judgemental eyes of the entire student body. Gossip spewed from her numerous tongues, a flurry of speculation and recrimination.

That's the new kid. The weird one with the foreign accent.

He's not one of us.

The rumours grew more pointed, turning into barbed accusations about his personal life. It was just as Nico remembered from his first passage through this place—his secrets tossed around and dissected in persistent whispers that grew louder by the second.

I heard he's got a crush on a boy.

I heard it was Percy Jackson—like he'd ever have a chance! Jackson's no poof.

Did you hear what he got up to with that Solace kid? Bloody fag.

It had been bad enough the first time, with Pheme whispering his own shameful feelings into his ears. Now his old fears about coming out were on display again, only this time four other people—six if you counted Bob and Damasen—were privy to them, too. Even though it was no longer a big secret that he was gay, the torments he had endured while coming to terms with it were his. It was just like when Eros had laid him bare before Jason, forcing confessions from him that he hadn't been ready to give.

Even if his friends accepted him, it didn't mean he was comfortable having his intimate feelings on display. And the spirit of gossip and rumour was only the tip of the iceberg. The spirits who had been waiting in the wings burst forth, alerted by Pheme's herald. The personification of each of the seven sins gathered, projecting a movie of damnation onto the cave walls. Starring Nico in the leading role, it featured his darkest thoughts and his most lurid daydreams.

In a mad fury, he raised a skeleton army that slashed its way through Camp Half-Blood, leaving every camper dead at his feet.

He sat on an obsidian throne before a fire that grew from a pile of bones—souls he had sacrificed on the pyre—while the spirit of Bianca rose from the earth. Her lips were stained with blood and she cursed him for calling her back this way.

His body and Will's entwined, their hands wandering in a way that made Nico's cheeks burn with the knowledge that everyone could see this, too. And then the Will in the picture pushed him away and melted into a crowd of faces that were all contorted in identical disgust.

Nico wanted to curl into a ball and block everything out.

More spirits joined the fray: Apate, goddess of deceit, catalogued every lie he'd ever told—who could ever trust you after that? Momus, god of mockery, started up a litany of criticism against him—creepy, antisocial, a freak of nature. Oizys, goddess of depression, prophesied a hopeless future for him.

You're despicable. Worthless. Unlovable. You will always be alone, Nico di Angelo.

How many times had he hidden himself away, believing those very words? Even before he'd ever encountered Oizys and the others, loneliness had practically been part of his identity—Nico di Angelo, the different one, the rejected one. It had been all too easy for the spirits of Night to turn his mind to despair. He'd already been halfway there.

'He's not alone!' Will's voice was weak and shaky, but it pierced the cloak of anguish that Oizys drew over Nico.

Something stirred in Nico's memory.

'That's the problem with you,' Will scolded. 'You leave because you believe everyone is gonna reject you, even if they haven't. Maybe if you stayed, you'd find out that you're not alone.'

His eyes flew open.

'Nico, you were never alone. You—'

Will was cut off by a harsh whisper, although this one was softer, and Nico didn't understand the accusation: 'You flit from one handsome boy to another. Who can trust your pretty words when you speak them to everyone?'

Will made a choking noise and raised his hands to cover his ears. Nico understood then: it was Will the spirits were targeting. And maybe it was true, to some extent—his boyfriend was annoyingly prone to 'appreciating the scenery'—but Nico was surprised that Will secretly despised his own flirtatious nature. Not when it was essentially harmless—when it was so obvious that at his core lay a loyal heart.

Nico's eyes and ears were now open to all the painful secrets that were playing on the caves' cinema of shame. Percy and Annabeth in a violent fight. Thalia wrapped around a certain Roman ex-Praetor. Will ran the tip of a scalpel down his arm, not even flinching as blood blossomed on his light skin. Whether the images were real or imagined, Nico wasn't sure. It didn't matter—they were devised to strike where it cut the deepest.

And just as he'd been overwhelmed by the intensity of his own shame, his friends were each stuck in the quagmire of theirs.

Confronted with the image of himself standing on a blood-soaked battlefield strewn with mutilated bodies, Will trembled even harder than Nico had when he'd emerged from his spider prison. Percy stared in horror at a picture of himself at the vortex of a hurricane that consumed the world. Tears ran down Annabeth's face as she watched herself fall from a glittering masterpiece of a monument, dragging her friends with her as she tumbled from the spires towards a pit of fire. Thalia's fingernails dug into her cheeks at the sight of a car smashing into a tree, the driver—who had spiky black hair like hers—slumped against the steering wheel with blood trickling down her face.

Playing across this was a soundtrack of assassinations. Oizys called Will a coward and a weakling. Momus mocked Annabeth's ambitions. Pheme teased Thalia about her forbidden crush.

'I'm not alone,' Nico whispered. And he wasn't. They all had things to be ashamed of. They all had parts of themselves they wanted to bury where they would never see daylight—in the Caves of Night.

And watching some of his friends' twisted nightmares brought to life, he realised many of those things weren't unique to him after all.

'Nico, friend!' Bob urged. 'You must keep moving.'

Bob held his broom in front of him, crossed with Damasen's large stick to form an 'X' that kept the spirits physically at bay, like they'd promised. The sabre-tooth tiger prowled at Bob's heels, baring its teeth and snapping whenever a spirit got too close. But as Damasen had warned, they could not ward away the dark emotions the spirits had unleashed. Nor could they carry the demigods through the cave.

They had to pull themselves out of this.

'Will.' Nico placed his hands firmly on his boyfriend's shoulder. 'Remember how you ran into a Roman camp—into a whole freaking legion trained for war—with only two kids as back-up? That took guts.'

'I—'

'I don't care if you appreciate a decent hottie. Maybe you can even tell me who you find cute at Camp Jupiter and we'll compare notes when we get out of here. But we have to get out first. So snap out of it.'

Will raised his head. Tears clung to his eyelashes. Nico wanted to kiss them away. Instead, he lifted Will's arm and pressed his lips to the scar that ran from his elbow to his wrist—a scar Nico had always assumed he'd sustained in battle. 'We're gonna talk about this,' he said, wanting to reassure Will that he knew its true origin now, but wasn't condemning him for it, 'and it's gonna be okay.'

'I think that's my line,' Will said. It was a weak attempt at a joke and the laugh that accompanied it was thin and forced. Still, it was there. Will grimaced at the images still playing on the cave walls. 'I told you you weren't alone.'

'You were right.'

Will went to help Annabeth, who was curled up in a ball of misery. Nico moved on to Thalia.

Her eyes were fixed on a parade of people Apate accused her of abandoning—You led them to believe you cared, and what did you do?—while Pheme cackled for everyone to hear, You've been fantasising about a girl, an outsider, haven't you? Just wait till this gets back to your Hunters! Oizys foretold misery in her dolorous voice: It will never work; no one shall heal your immortal heart.

Nico wasn't sure where to start. It wasn't like he knew Thalia all that well.

He did know Reyna, though, and he was reasonably sure that was who Thalia secretly liked. He decided to start there.

'I got to know Reyna a lot when we were travelling together. I think you'd match, like Percy and Annabeth do. You guys could work.'

Thalia glowered at Nico. 'You don't know anything,' she snapped. 'Butt out! I don't need advice on my love life. Which I don't have.'

Her rebuttal sounded extremely familiar. Nico wondered where he'd come across the sentiment before. Then he remembered.

Diocletian's Palace.

Nico had pushed Jason's acceptance away when he'd first offered it. When you were convinced that something you felt was wrong, it was hard to believe that someone else might be willing to embrace it.

'Did you know your brother was the first person I came out to?' Well, he'd actually been forced to come out to Jason by a bully of a love god, but that wasn't really the point now. 'He was really decent about it. He let me decide when I wanted to tell anyone else. Even told me I was brave, though I sure as Hades didn't think so. We didn't talk about it, but having him know my secret and not judge it—I started thinking maybe it'd be okay to tell people after that.'

'Jason's a good kid,' Thalia said. Her eyes darted back to the cave wall. A blond two-year-old with electric blue eyes—the only feature the Grace siblings shared—reached out for her as she walked away. 'I left him behind. I thought he was dead, but I shouldn't have believed my mom. I should have found him. I left her behind, too. I left so many people.' She turned back to Nico. 'I left Bianca in the junkyard of the gods.'

Nico swallowed hard. 'Maybe you did, but that wasn't your fault. And Bianca—she didn't blame you.'

Thalia was silent. Nico didn't know if he had gotten through to her, but at least she was no longer clawing at her cheeks. Meanwhile, Will had spoken to Annabeth and together, they had lifted Percy out of his nightmares.

'We need to keep moving,' Nico said to all of them.

Slowly, painfully, they did. The taunting of the spirits didn't get any easier to bear, but Nico urged the others on every time they flagged, beaten down by the whispers and visions. Damasen led them along a wet and boggy path that ran uphill, such that they were practically crawling away from the spirits that trailed behind them.

Finally, they entered a wide cavern that was covered in swampy marshland and lit by a bright blue flame on a central altar. The spirits hissed and fled back down the path they'd come. For the first time since entering the Caves of Night, everything was blissfully silent.

'Are we—out?' Annabeth's voice was thick with exhaustion.

Bob shook his head. 'Not yet. But this is a rest stop.'

'The shrine of Eleos,' Damasen announced. 'Goddess of compassion.'

The puddles beneath their feet stung when they splashed through. Nico could tell from the faint, woeful hum that the marsh was fed by the River of Acheron, but the waters that pooled here sounded more remorseful than tormented.

The shrine sat on a circle of hard rock, rising several inches above the marsh. Behind the altar was a temple with an entrance so low that Nico, who was the smallest of the group, would have to crouch to enter it.

'Is the goddess here?' Will asked as they approached. 'Should we, um, make a sacrifice?'

'She won't appear,' said a soft voice. A tiny girl dressed in peacock blue emerged from the temple. A thin veil obscured her face. 'She has rarely stirred since the days of Athens.' The girl placed her palm on the altar. 'The world is somewhat lacking in compassion these days.'

'Is that why her shrine fell to Tartarus?' Thalia asked. Maybe she was thinking of Geras, ousted and banished when old age became reviled.

'It has always been here,' Damasen said. 'Eleos is a child of Nyx. A disappointment, rather like myself. I chose peace instead of war. She gives respite to the weary instead of suffering.'

'Yes,' said the girl in blue. 'I am her attendant. Eons ago, I was brought here on the Acheron. I have tended the shrine ever since.' She inclined her head towards Nico. 'Do you remember me, Nico di Angelo?'

'Er, no. Sorry. I don't think I've been here before.'

'No,' sighed the girl. 'No, you have not. But I touched your mind. I gave you peace.'

With her palms facing up, she spread her fingers towards the cavern ceiling. A sprinkle of water fell out of nowhere. Tiny droplets landed on their heads, as cool and refreshing as summer rain.

Nico remembered then the same touch during his first, despairing crawl through the Caves of Night. A brief respite, not enough to undo the damage of the spirits, but just enough to hold his mind together. It was a baptism of mercy, descending when he had needed it most.

This was the true nepenthe, a more powerful restorative than any potion they could ever manage to brew.

This girl had given it to him and he hadn't even known.

'Why?' he asked her. 'Why did you help me?'

'Perhaps because I, too, am a child of the Underworld. Perhaps as a child with two fathers, I empathised with your pain. Or perhaps it was because we share a name.'

She lifted her veil.

Her eyes burned with the same bright blue flame that lit the altar. In their flicker, Nico could sense the mark of their father—a half-crazed spark that hinted at wild ideas and intense emotion. 'I am the daemon Angelos.'

'Wait,' said Percy, scratching his head. 'What do you mean two fathers?'

Annabeth elbowed him. 'Isn't it obvious?'

'Well, yeah, I get that she’s got two dads. I was just wondering, if Hades is one of them, who's the other?'

Nico nearly rolled his eyes—Percy's blunt nature became less appealing the older Nico got—but he found he was actually curious about the answer. He knew by now that the gods weren’t as straight-laced as the 1930s society in which he'd grown up (or even certain communities in the twenty-first century), but he'd never suspected his father of having a fluid sexual orientation. Apollo, sure—there couldn't be any immortal more flamboyantly bi than Will's dad. Hades, on the other hand, always struck Nico as old-fashioned, both in his tastes and his morals.

Then again, if ancient Greece had accepted alternative sexuality, that would make the attitudes of the current millennia new rather than old.

'Hermes,' Angelos said carelessly, ignoring the stunned expressions around her. 'I have also been called Angelia—daemon of messages and tidings. It's been a while since I've had anyone to proclaim to, though. And on that note—hang on for a second.'

She disappeared into her temple and came back out with a bowl in one hand and a looking glass in the other. She placed the bowl on the altar and motioned for them to gather around her.

'Your friends on the surface await you,' she said, pointing into the mirror. The reflective glass shimmered and resolved into a pretty, tanned face with kaleidoscope eyes.

'Piper!' said Annabeth.

'Annabeth?' Oh my gods, you can hear me? Are you okay? Is everyone there? No, wait, I can see them, too—what's happening?'

'We're fine—well, maybe not fine, we're still in Tartarus, but we're all here and we're alive, and we're headed for—'

The serious, square jaw of Jason Grace pushed into the frame. 'Is everyone okay? Did you save Percy?'

'Hey bro,' said Percy.

'Thank the gods—wait, you remember me?'

'I even remember our last bet about where Nico would spend the year. You owe me fifty bucks, dude.'

'Excuse me?' Nico interrupted.

'Damn, if there was one good thing about you losing your memory—'

Annabeth cleared her throat. 'Can we talk about how we're getting out of here first?'

A sheepish grin spread across Jason's face. 'I'll go get the others,' he said. He disappeared, but they could hear him shouting, 'Guys! Piper's got Percy and the others in her dagger!'

'The others,' huffed Thalia. 'Good to see you, too, little bro.'

'We've found Thanatos,' Piper said. 'Leo and Reyna got us transport and we're on our way. We'll get the Doors of Death to you by tomorrow, we promise!'

'That's good,' Annabeth said. 'We're headed to the heart—well, where we're pretty sure the Doors will show up, anyway.'

'So, say, twenty-four hours?'

Annabeth looked at Bob. 'Can we do it?'

'Time is difficult in Tartarus,' Bob admitted. 'But I think yes.'

'Twenty-four hours,' Annabeth told Piper.

'I'll keep looking in Katoptris, anyway,' Piper said. 'It's been showing me—well, I was really worried for a while. But it's so good to see that you're okay. I really—'

Her image froze like a bad FaceTime connection. The mirror went black. Angelos tapped at it, then shrugged. 'I may have forgotten to charge it. Like I said, it's been a while.'

'It's fine,' Annabeth said. 'We know we have twenty-four hours to get to the heart of Tartarus.'

Angelos considered this. 'You are close,' she said. 'Do not rush to your destination. More challenges await you. You will need to rest to face them. For a sacrifice, you may rest here at the shrine.'

'What sort of sacrifice?' Percy asked warily.

'Cloth and hair, Angelos said. She smiled at the surprise on their faces. 'It is how Eleos has always been honoured.'

She indicated the bowl she had laid upon the altar. Nico, Percy, and Annabeth drew their swords. They each sliced off a section of their hair, along with some cloth from their shirt sleeves. Angelos emptied their offerings into the blue flame, which shone white for a few seconds. Another light sprinkle of cleansing rain showered down, returning the fire to its original blue.

'Eleos accepts your offering,' Angelos announced. Five sleeping bags popped out of the swamp. They were only standard-issue camping gear, but right now they looked as inviting as a luxury hotel bed.

Angelos looked apologetically at Bob and Damasen. 'I'm afraid we aren't set up for Titans and such.'

Damasen shrugged. 'We will keep watch,' he said.

'I will leave you to your rest,' Angelos said. 'But first, I shall bear you each a tiding.'

She turned first to Bob and Damasen. 'When it comes to a choice between choosing who you are and letting the world dictate your identity, remember that archetypes may survive indefinitely, but immortality has its drawbacks.'

Angelos looked at Thalia next. 'Moving on is not the same as leaving someone behind. If you do not wish to remain motionless, you must accept what is in your heart.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Thalia demanded.

'I bear the messages,' Angelos said impassively. 'I do not interpret them. That's up to you.'

She inclined her head towards Annabeth. 'Many a prophecy has hinged upon you. Now your ingenuity will be called upon yet again. It will be up to you to ensure the pattern no longer repeats.'

Annabeth's eyes widened. Percy's hand tightened around hers.

'And you have changed much in your time here,' Angelos continued, addressing Percy. 'It has shaped you, and you will shape the journey—what you have been seeking will be at the heart of it.'

From the blank look on his face, this was as much a mystery to Percy as it was to Nico.

To Will, Angelos said, 'The light shines brighter when it emerges from darkness. Do not be afraid to embrace the darkness within you.'

Finally, she held Nico's gaze. 'Your struggles are a gift. You understand compassion because you understand pain. Don't bury it away again, little brother.'

Angelos looked nothing like his sister, but at that moment it was Bianca's ghostly face he saw, shining with fierce, determined pride.

Don't hide from the world, little brother. Live. Make me proud.

It had taken him a long time to internalise Bianca's parting words. Even now he wasn't sure he'd managed to live as she'd asked him to.

Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia settled into their sleeping bags and fell asleep right away. Nico thought of the charge Angelos had laid on him. He remembered the promise he'd made just hours ago. He didn't know if this was the most appropriate time to keep it, but he decided to try anyway.

'Hey,' Will said when Nico pulled his sleeping bag over to him. 'Some trek, huh?'

Nico ran a finger along the scar on Will's arm. 'Do you want to tell me about it?'

Will stiffened. When he spoke, it was in a careful, brittle tone so unlike his usual sunny self. 'I wasn't trying to kill myself or anything, if that's what you're thinking.'

'I wasn't thinking that.'

'Just after the Battle of the Labyrinth—do you remember that? Well, it was the first time I'd ever seen so much death. All those friends I couldn't save…we buried them and we were supposed to go back to our regular activities after that. I was supposed to help everyone go back to normal.' Will started slowly, but now the words came spilling out in a babbling rush. 'Apollo cabin always leads the singalong, you know. And we'd just lost our head counsellor in the battle. I, um, had a bit of a crush on him. I was alone in the infirmary, and I—well, I don't even remember what I was thinking. Maybe I wanted to stop thinking about it. Or I just needed to feel something other than sad. The scalpel was just there.' Will hung his head. 'It was stupid, I know.'

'It's not stupid.' Nico took a deep breath. 'I never told anyone this, but… I used to take pomegranate seeds and go into a death trance just to get away from my memories of Tartarus.'

'I can understand that. Especially now.' Will gave a shaky laugh. 'I'm an idiot, Nico. I actually thought coming back down here would help you. I thought you needed to face it again. I guess I did it again—and this time I ended up cutting us both because I thought it would help.' He traced his scar sadly. 'I tried to force you to deal with things my way. I'm sorry.'

'No, it's not the same. Facing Tartarus isn’t really like hurting yourself. I think—I think the reason why Tartarus is so awful is because it's made of our own darkness. Like—gods, I don't know how to explain this properly. I always zone out when Chiron talks about it.'

'Like how the gods are part of the collective unconscious?' Will suggested. 'They embody what we believe.'

'Exactly. It's all the worst stuff we believe about ourselves.'

'I don't know how anyone wouldn't go crazy confronting that,' Will mused.

'Unless they knew they weren't the only ones with problems.' Nico twisted the skull ring on his finger. 'I wish I'd known you had stuff you couldn't talk about, too.'

'I didn't tell you before because—well, you've got so much sadness already. I didn't want to add to it. I didn't think anyone would ever find out.

'And I didn't tell you about the pomegranate seeds because I didn't want you to worry.'

Their eyes met and they started to laugh.

'I guess we should've depended on each other more,' Will said.

'If I've learned anything from passing through the Caves of Night twice, it's that it's easier to be strong for someone else than for yourself.'

Will touched his cheek. 'You are incredibly strong, Nico di Angelo.'

Nico kissed him. 'We can be strong together.'

Nico imagined the goddess Eleos drawing a gentle blanket of mercy over them while Angelos tucked them into a bed of compassion. With his head nestled against his boyfriend's shoulder, he finally fell asleep.

A/N: So, a few notes on this one. First, I know I’ve touched on some really difficult issues in this chapter and I really hope I’ve treated them sensitively. It is not my intention to hurt anyone with my portrayal of mental trauma, bullying, or self-harm. This is probably the most personal piece of fictional writing I’ve ever written and while a lot of my own experience made its way into writing the chapter, I am aware that everyone’s experience of mental trauma is different, and I don’t wish to belittle anyone else’s. If you’ve felt that I dealt unfairly or insultingly with anything here, I hope you’ll feel comfortable enough to tell me why and I am happy to discuss our different experiences. I also hope my readers have exercised their judgement in choosing whether to continue reading and I haven’t caused anyone undue harm with triggers and whatnot. May I offer you all a big hug after all that angst? *hugs*

And on a lighter note ... I went all out with the spirits in this chapter! I figured, why not make use of the insanely many that Greek mythology has to offer? Of course, I embellished a lot, but hey, RR gave us a great example of how to make up stories for the Greek myths, right? You can read more about each of them here:

- The unnamed cymbal-hand girl who guards the Caves of Night; - Pheme; - Apate; - Momus; - Oizys; - Eleos; - Angelos (who incidentally is recorded as Zeus and Hera’s daughter—but hated by Hera, but also called Angelia, who is named as a daughter of Hermes … I think you can probably understand why I integrated both myths!)

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[sueboohscorner]

The Vampire Diaries 812 Recap “What Are You?” #TVD

Poor Matty Blue is having Maxwell legacy visions that are causing him to sleepwalk, and his somnambulist urges have delivered him to the Armory, where–yay!–Alaric is back! If anyone can fix the troubling sitch in Mystic Falls, it’s our favorite badass professor since Indiana Jones.

Matt confers with Alaric and Dorian about his nighttime troubles, and they realize he’s tapping into the memories of his ancestors, from which they hope to gain invaluable intel. They get him strapped in for a sleep study.

But that comes later, and of course, I’m stalling. Bonnie is in shock, crumpled on the floor of her house, Enzo’s lifeless body just outside her open front door. She takes a call from Damon and tearfully fills him in. Damon passes the news on to Caroline, who pretends to be confused about Bonnie’s stonewalling her in the aftermath of Caroline’s boyfriend murdering Bonnie’s boyfriend…Damon doesn’t let her get away with that self-delusion. 

But Caroline has her own fire to put out, so she calls Bonnie’s mom to help. Caroline’s fire? Well, Stefan’s been leaving his fingerprints all over murder scenes for the last couple of months, and he’s been arrested. With his newly restored humanity hitting him hard, he knows he deserves this and worse, but he still leaves with Caroline when she compels the cops to believe this was all a case of mistaken identity.

Damon is back in Mystic Falls, chewing on his own guilt and sorrow over Enzo’s death, when Cade arrives with news of the good and bad varieties. The good news is, their deal was for two immortal souls, so Stefan’s new mortality has nullified that arrangement; Damon no longer needs to kill for Cade. However, both their souls remain damned for oh-so-many reasons, and now that Stefan is mortal, Cade intends to collect his soul immediately…unless Damon will trade something Cade wants for Stefan to live out his mortal life, however long that may be. The thing Cade wants? The Maxwell journal featured in Matt’s visions and currently being studied at the Armory.

This is a terrible idea, but as we know, the Salvatore brothers’ greatest weakness has always been each other. There is no chance Damon will refuse this deal. 

He heads straight for the Armory, where Alaric disables him, then locks him up. Alaric knows Damon will not listen to reason. Damon watches from an Armory cell while Matt is going all Nightmare on Elm Street. Lucid dreaming in his hypnotic state allows Matt to narrate his visions. He’s seeing the life of Ethan Maxwell, the original metalworker who made the bell in partnership with the Bennett witches, one of whom was his girlfriend, Beatrice. While Ethan and Beatrice are engaged in some bell-adjacent flirting, Sibyl walks right up and says she needs the services of a gifted metalworker…dun dun dun!

Sibyl and Seline are living in the cave from which Sibyl will eventually be regrettably freed to ruin everyone’s lives. They have a plan to corrupt the bell’s purpose, and they Siren poor Ethan into doing their bidding. He can’t warn anyone about what he’s been forced to do, and for some reason, it takes him until the exact moment the plan is being enacted to get a sneaky message to Beatrice via their code key. He’s miserably ringing the bell and hoping to be stopped, and the gathered witches pour their energy into trapping the hellfire with a forcefield. They succeed, saving the town and keeping hell closed, but the coven is simply gone, possibly sucked into hell, certainly dead. Ethan leads Beatrice to the cave, where she seals the Sirens in, but she can’t prevent their song from influencing Ethan through the barrier; under their control, he attacks Beatrice, and she mournfully seals him in  the room where his bones, and his journal, will eventually be discovered. As she flees in sorrow, he shouts after her that he knows how to kill the devil but “cannot say,” which means he’s written it in his journal, in code. 

Unfortunately, Matt’s dreamscape is killing him, and in the heat of the moment, Alaric frees Damon to help. Of course, as soon as Matt’s medical situation is resolved, Damon grabs the book and superspeeds out of there to deliver it to Cade.

What Damon doesn’t know is that he’s currently bargaining for what might be a very short life indeed, as Stefan has been stabbed in the gut, and the Cure in his system prevents vamp-cures. His gut wound is the result of being hoisted on his own petard, so I’m not feeling bad for him: Realtor lady from last week is barely alive after he dumped her in the trunk of her own car with a gaping neck wound. He wouldn’t have given her a moment’s thought, apparently, but her daughter just happened to be at the police station filing a missing person’s report when Caroline was getting him out. The little girl says there’s no one else who can take care of her, “it’s just me and my mom,” and at that moment, even Caroline looks sickened. Stefan might have gone too far in Caroline’s eyes…unless they go find that woman before it’s too late. They do, and she stabs the guy who nearly killed her yesterday, which is her right as far as I’m concerned. You go, Karen.

Of course, Stefan survives the episode, and Karen is reunited with her daughter, so we’re meant to think this is something like a step toward redemption. I’m not buying it, and neither is Damon anymore…he asks Cade whether there’s any hope of earning freedom from damnation in time to avoid going to hell when they finally die. Cade smiles and says, “I wouldn’t want to give you false hope.”

Damon gives Stefan that false hope, though, when Stefan asks him a similar question. Damon, once again, is trying to bear a burden for his brother. 

Again, I’ve been stalling on the Enzo subplot. I wish I could say Bonnie and her mom witchy-wooed him back to life, but the current explanation for Bonnie’s psychic detonation last week is that her grief punched a door open between our world and hell. Her mom realizes this and burns Enzo’s body in the hope that will reseal the door. Bonnie heads for home and has a nice talk with Matt, who knows about loss and had come to genuinely respect Enzo.

Finally, Damon waltzes back into the Armory, and Alaric is on the verge of throwing down, but Damon smooth-talks him with the idea that he knows how to kill Cade, even without the journal. It’s a piece of Cade’s own cremains, forged into a weapon by the fires of hell. As they talk about killing the devil, in walks Kai!

Kai’s arrival with a “better plan” gives me real hope. What if he has a way to destroy hell without destroying those trapped there, essentially transforming hell into the Other Side–or better yet, returning them to the world, as Kai has returned? 

I’m so excited about having Kai around for more than a flashback or fantasy, this episode is a winner in my book. What about you? Share your theories about Kai’s “better plan” and what you hope to see in the last four episodes!

Episode grade: 9