WHO: Nico di Angelo and Damon Salvatore WHAT: Random Match-up WHERE: Pleasant Hills Graveyard WHEN: Near dusk, Saturday WARNINGS: Talk of death, TBD STATUS: Closed/Ongoing
Nico often found himself wandering here on his walks through town. He liked Harry fine, he supposed, but he was used to being alone, and so he took just about every chance he could find to get back to his precious solitude. And graveyards were a good place to do it. Most people found them scary, especially as night drew near, but Nico had never had that problem. Death didn't scare him...it was a natural thing. And while he was not particularly ready for his own to find him, he knew that eventually it would, and that he would be the one facing the judgement of the judges. He'd not done anything so bad he expected himself to face the Fields of Punishment, but he didn't really expect Elysium, either. His balance sheet was in the green, but he was hardly a hero. He'd acted too many times in his own self-interest, and rarely risked his life to safe others. Those were the things that heroes did.
Graveyards were also safer for him, in some ways. While with effort he could certainly raise the skeletons of those who lay here, the depth of the burial and the strength of the caskets made it unlikely that he would do so accidentally. And the fact that nobody came here meant that he didn't have to restrain the aura of death and darkness that surrounded him as it did his father. It was strange to say, but alone in this graveyard was one of the few places he could truly be himself.
And the ghosts that inevitably wandered at night were friends to him, too. And if not, he could easily silence them. He was the Ghost King, after all. In fact, he meant to see if he could summon spirits here, tonight. If the rules were still the same.
He sat on the ground, crossing his legs underneath him, ignoring the grass as it died around him, and closed his eyes, speaking a simple summoning and pushing his power into it. He felt the breath of dry, icy, decaying air from the Underworld and smiled, not needing to open his eyes to feel that he had been successful.
But when he did, he found himself facing a pale apparation, and smiled before waving it away. He'd only wanted to know if he could do it. He might have orders for them at a latter date, but not now.
It was only then that he felt a presence behind him that was...not dead, but not exactly alive, either.
"I know you're there," he said softly, his voice seeming almost from beyond the grave itself.